A recent lawsuit is claiming that some types of wine from popular, inexpensive brands of California wine are exceeding the recommended levels of arsenic for safe consumption. In California there are no laws claiming that wine labels must show every detail about what goes on in there.

Water on the other hand, is highly regulated for arsenic. The Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for arsenic in drinking water is ten parts per billion, which is what the lawsuit is comparing the wine levels too.

Others are claiming these comparison is without merit because people generally do not consume as much wine as they do water, and therefore are likely still within the safe consumption limits. A spokesman from the wine brand TWG noted that a man would have to drink multiple bottles of wine a day for the levels of arsenic to actually reach dangerous levels.

Prior to following the lawsuit many wine brands were tested in a couple different labs to confirm the results. 80 different wines came back as testing high in arsenic when using the safe water limit as a scale. Most of these wines were of the mass produced variety and sell for around five to ten dollars a bottle.

Arsenic in excess is thought to increase the risks of developing cancers, diabetes, and suffer kidney and liver damage.

What complicates this case even further is that arsenic is found in both organic and inorganic forms. Some arsenic is naturally found in many foods that grow from the earth due to its level in soil, and the grapes that wine is made with are no different in that regard.

While many people, winemakers included, are taking the suit as an overly dramatic gesture, the lawsuit is moving forward with full force. If they win the case every Californian who purchased wine on the list in the past few years would be eligible to be included in the class suit.

“Defendants’ California wine consumers have been made unwitting ‘guinea pigs’ of arsenic exposure, being involuntarily exposed to toxic levels of inorganic arsenic over and over again by the defendants.”