Lawsuit alleges that some California wines contain extremely high levels of arsenic

A class action lawsuit filed Thursday in California accuses more than 24 winemakers and sellers across the state of misrepresenting the safety of their product.

The suit claims that several best-selling wines have four or five times the maximum amount of arsenic that the Environmental Protection Agency allows for drinking water, CBS News reports. Kevin Hicks, a former wine distributor, started a lab to analyze wine, and after testing more than 1,300 bottles, he found that nearly one-quarter had arsenic levels higher than 10 parts per billion, the EPA's maximum allowable amount in drinking water. Hicks also found something interesting about wines like Two Buck Chuck White Zinfandel and Franzia White Grenache: "The lower the price of wine on a per-liter basis, the higher the amount of arsenic," he said.

Epidemiologist Allan Smith, associate director of then Arsenic Health Effects research program at UC Berkeley, said that while "parts per billion" sounds like a small amount, it can be dangerous in high levels. "Arsenic is highly toxic," he told CBS News. "It's astonishing. It has as many effects inside the body as cigarette smoking does."

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