--- title: "Five More Families Amend Botulism Claims Against ByHeart, Its Retailers, and Its Dairy Suppliers in Federal MDL" date: 2026-09-10T14:42:00-07:00 author: Julie Dueck canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/five-more-families-amend-botulism-claims-against-byheart-its-retailers-and-its-dairy-suppliers-in-federal-mdl" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Press Releases](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/press-releases) / # Five More Families Amend Botulism Claims Against ByHeart, Its Retailers, and Its Dairy Suppliers in Federal MDL **BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. — July 20, 2026 —** Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, today filed amended complaints on behalf of five families — two in California, one in Arizona, one in Texas, and one in Washington — whose infants were sickened in the 2025 ByHeart infant formula botulism outbreak — the largest infant botulism outbreak ever documented in the United States and, according to the FDA, the first botulism outbreak tied to infant formula anywhere in the world since the illness was first described some fifty years ago. All five cases are pending in the Southern District of New York as part of *In re: ByHeart, Inc., Infant Formula Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation*, MDL No. 3178, before Judge Arun Subramanian. ***Barbera v. ByHeart, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-02902 (Third Amended Complaint).** Anthony Barbera and Thalia Flores of San Joaquin County, California, sue on behalf of their son, A.B., their first child. A.B. was born September 29, 2025, and fed ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula exclusively — five 24-ounce cans and an “anywhere pack” purchased through ByHeart.com and at Target stores in Stockton and Lodi. By late October he could barely take an ounce every three hours. He was admitted to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton on October 25, deteriorated overnight into a floppy, unresponsive infant who could no longer cry, and was moved to the NICU. BabyBIG antitoxin was administered near midnight on October 26. His stool tested positive for botulism type A on October 29 — by which point he had lost weight, down to 8 pounds 10 ounces. He was discharged November 7 and still struggles with constipation and feeding. ***Mazziotti v. ByHeart, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-03223 (First Amended Complaint).** Amy and Anthony Mazziotti of Burbank sue on behalf of their son, H.M., born September 27, 2024. The family began feeding him ByHeart formula purchased at the Target on Empire Avenue in Burbank. On March 5, 2025, he went lethargic and refused his bottle after roughly a week of constipation; the next day his head tilted, his eyes went distant, and his body went limp. He was so dehydrated that it took five needle sticks to place an IV. He was transferred to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, received BabyBIG on March 7, required a feeding tube, and was hospitalized twelve days. He has needed weekly physical therapy since April 2025 and still suffers severe constipation. ***Dexter v. ByHeart, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-02891 (Fourth Amended Complaint).** Stephen and Yurany Dexter of Coconino County, Arizona, sue on behalf of their daughter, E.D., who was born healthy on July 5, 2025. Three days later her parents went to Whole Foods looking for a more natural option to supplement breast milk and chose ByHeart for its healthy-looking label, its top-shelf placement, and its higher price, buying it there and from Amazon. On August 21 she began having stomach discomfort and gas. Her feeding fell off over the following week — she seemed hungry but refused the bottle the moment it touched her lips — and she was eventually diagnosed with thrush while her weakness went unexplained; her parents took to feeding her by syringe. On August 31 she aspirated during a feeding and later could not be woken. She was admitted to Flagstaff Medical Center that day and flown by air ambulance to Phoenix Children's Hospital on the night of September 2. Before the flight, a doctor told her parents that botulism was so rare he thought a form of muscular dystrophy more likely. In the pediatric ICU she could not suck, swallow, smile, hold her head up, move her limbs normally, or cry with any strength. She received BabyBIG and was discharged September 13 with a feeding tube still in place. She continues to struggle with constipation and gas, and cannot be left alone while she is awake. ***Joseph v. ByHeart, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-02899 (Third Amended Complaint).** Anit Joseph and Luke Pooley of League City, Texas, sue on behalf of their son, K.P., born July 11, 2025. They started him on ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula on September 30, bought at the Target stores in Dickinson and Webster. In hindsight the first signs came on November 6 — he turned fussy, slept through the day, ate less, and appeared constipated. By November 15 his cry was weak, he could not hold his head up on his stomach, and he refused both breast milk and the bottle. The next day he was floppy, and the emergency department at Methodist Hospital sent him by ambulance to Texas Children's Hospital. He was intubated there for three days — it took three tries, and his oxygen fell with each one — fed through a tube, and given BabyBIG flown in from California. He came home on November 25 and remains weak and still recovering. His mother turned to formula because she was not producing enough milk and settled on ByHeart after reading through reviews to find the best on the market; the guilt of having chosen it, she says, has not left her. ***Wescott v. ByHeart, Inc.*, No. 1:26-cv-03085 (Fourth Amended Complaint).** Madison and Tyler Wescott of Eatonville, Pierce County, Washington, sue on behalf of their daughter, K.W., born September 13, 2025. Beginning October 22, 2025, they fed her roughly four ounces of ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula a day, bought at the Target in Puyallup. By early November she was choking on her bottle and spilling milk from her mouth, constipated enough to need suppositories, and sleeping ten hours at a stretch without waking. She was diagnosed with a severe tongue and lip tie on November 7 and had both corrected by laser on November 11, after which she could no longer latch — but the feeding trouble, constipation, and lethargy had all begun before that procedure and continued after it. On November 13, her two-month birthday, her parents took her to the emergency room. They had already seen a Target notice about the recall of the formula they had bought; the physicians researched the recall, called the CDC and the local health department, and admitted her for botulism treatment. Within four hours she had an IV, bloodwork, a feeding tube, and three X-rays, and her parents were told that without the antitoxin she could be paralyzed and lose the ability to breathe on her own. At 3:00 a.m. on November 14 they learned it would arrive from California that afternoon. A specimen taken later that day came back positive for botulism on November 15. She went home on November 19 and still has trouble feeding and gaining weight, and needs speech-language and physical therapy. Writing from the hospital, her mother said that not being able to fully feed her child, and not being able to trust formula companies, “has really taken a toll on our family.” All five complaints name ByHeart, Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. Dairy Farmers of America processed fluid milk supplied by Organic West Milk, Inc. into the organic whole milk powder used as an ingredient in the formula, at a facility in Fallon, Nevada. The Barbera, Mazziotti, Joseph, and Wescott complaints also name Target Corporation. The Dexter, Joseph, and Wescott complaints name Organic West itself, and the Dexter complaint adds the two retailers that sold the formula to the Dexters — Amazon.com, Inc., and Mrs. Gooch's Natural Food Markets, Inc., which owns and operates Whole Foods Market stores in Arizona. All five allege strict product liability, breach of express and implied warranties, and negligence; the four filed outside Washington also plead negligence *per se* as a separate count. The Dexters also bring an Arizona claim for the loss of their daughter's consortium. The CDC declared the outbreak over on February 26, 2026, with a final count of 48 infants — 28 confirmed and 20 probable — across seventeen states. Every one of them was hospitalized. Whole-genome sequencing tied the pathogen across sick infants, finished formula, ByHeart's base mix, and a lot of organic whole milk powder collected by the FDA at Dairy Farmers of America. The FDA has since completed its inspections of ByHeart's plants and reported finding no facility deficiency that could explain the outbreak; its root-cause work has moved to incoming ingredients and the dairy supply chain. All five complaints also plead a second outbreak. In June 2026 the FDA and CDC opened a new multistate infant botulism investigation, this one tied to Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic powdered infant formula — four confirmed type A infections in California, Pennsylvania, and Washington, with illness onsets in April and May 2026, and all four infants hospitalized and treated with BabyBIG. Laboratory testing found *Clostridium botulinum* in an open can of Nara Organics formula fed to one of the sick infants, and the FDA is testing an unopened can from the same lot. Nara Organics and ByHeart draw on the same dairy supply chain — Organic West Milk and its processor, Dairy Farmers of America — and the customer list Organic West gave the FDA left Nara off it. The two brands are connected in another way. When ByHeart recalled its formula in November 2025, it did not simply point families to generic alternatives — a November 11, 2025 Instagram post recommended Nara Organics products and gave ByHeart customers a 20% discount code “to help and support ByHeart families make a smooth transition to a new formula.” The post was later deleted, and ByHeart has since said the two companies are entirely separate. The practical effect, the complaints allege, was that families leaving one botulism-linked formula were steered to a second one drawing on the very same organic whole milk supply chain — two brands, one supply chain, each tied to type A infant botulism, which points to the dairy ingredient rather than to anything peculiar to a single manufacturer's plant. The California, Texas, and Washington complaints also detail Target's response to the recall. The FDA sent Target a warning letter on December 12, 2025 for failing to pull recalled ByHeart formula from its shelves, after a November 19 call and follow-up emails on seven separate days went unanswered as to what corrective action Target had taken. On November 20, 2025, state officials found recalled ByHeart “anywhere pack” sticks on a Target shelf under promotional “Sale!” signage discounting the product by $2.00. The Joseph complaint pleads that conduct as independent negligence — a failure separate from any defect in the formula itself, and outside the Texas statute limiting when a non-manufacturing seller answers for a defective product. The Wescott complaint pleads the same conduct against Target under Washington's product liability act, which makes a product seller answerable for harm caused by its own negligence, and alleges in the alternative that if Dairy Farmers of America is not a manufacturer subject to liability, Target itself answers as the manufacturer of the adulterated formula. The Dexter complaint adds that Amazon sold and shipped the formula to consumers nationwide and then turned over its customer purchase records to the FDA, which used them to identify buyers of the recalled product in the United States and in twenty-one other countries and territories, from Argentina and Brazil to Japan, South Africa, and the British Virgin Islands. Marler Clark is joined by Trevor Quirk of Quirk Law Firm, LLP in Ventura, California, in the Barbera and Mazziotti matters, by Jonathan V. O'Steen of O'Steen MacLeod Combs PLC in Phoenix in the Dexter matter, and by Justin A. Hill of Hill Law Firm in San Antonio in the Joseph matter. **About Marler Clark** Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, is the nation's leading law firm representing victims of foodborne illness outbreaks. The firm has represented thousands of individuals in claims against food companies whose contaminated products have caused serious injury and death, recovering over $900,000,000 for clients. **Contact** William D. 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