April 11 (Reuters) - More than 20 lawsuits brought by

families who say their children were harmed by baby food

products made by Gerber, Beech-Nut, Campbell Soup Co ( CPB ) and several

other companies that were tainted with heavy metals will be

centralized in San Francisco federal court, a federal judicial

panel said Thursday.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said the

cases will be centralized before U.S. District Judge Jacqueline

Scott Corley in the Northern District of California, where five

of the cases are already pending and similar litigation is

proceeding in state court. The panel said the multidistrict

litigation (MDL) would help move the cases more efficiently,

given their overlapping claims and defendants.

In the cases, which are currently in 11 different federal

courts, the families claim their children suffered brain

injuries and were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or

ADHD after they ate tainted baby food.

Lawyers for the families, which pushed for the MDL, argued

the different companies use common suppliers and laboratories to

test their foods and the lawsuits allege common practices that

led the tainted products to reach the shelves.

Pedram Esfandiary of Wisner Baum, who led the bid for the

MDL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Representatives for Gerber, Beech-Nut and Campbell, which

opposed the creation of an MDL, did not respond to requests for

comment.

In a brief urging the JPML to reject centralization, the

companies pointed to two rulings in baby food injury lawsuits,

one in federal and one in state court in California, where

judges said the science didn't support the plaintiffs' claims.

The companies deny the allegations that their products are

unsafe and say the metals in question occur naturally in soil

and water.

The cases follow a 2021 report from a U.S. House of

Representatives' subcommittee that found toxic levels of heavy

metals in baby food manufactured by Gerber, Beech-Nut and

others.

That year, more than 80 lawsuits were filed over the

products, with the majority of them accusing the companies of

defrauding consumers by failing to disclose the heavy metals

present in the foods. Plaintiffs in those original lawsuits

moved to create an MDL, but the JPML rejected it, saying the

cases were against individual companies and should continue on

their separate tracks.

But in its ruling Thursday, the panel said the cases now

pending largely name multiple companies as defendants and are

all personal injury actions that will have some overlap.