Today, Rep. Shontel M. Brown (OH-11) supported passage in the House of Representatives of two bills aimed at addressing the current baby formula shortage and ensuring families have access to the nutrition their infants need.
“I am alarmed and deeply troubled that families in Ohio and across the country are struggling to find baby formula,” said Rep. Brown. “This is an emergency for families nationwide, but especially for parents with limited resources who rely most on formula to support the health and development of their babies. We need to move heaven and earth to get formula back on shelves, and ultimately back in Americans’ grocery carts. By passing these bills to provide emergency funding to the FDA and expand WIC participants' access to formula, the House is taking concrete action to address this unacceptable crisis.”
The supplemental funding bill, H.R. 7790, provides the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urgently needed resources to help address the infant formula shortage, increase the number of FDA inspection staff, provide additional resources for personnel working on the formula crisis, help the agency ensure that fraudulent baby formula doesn’t enter the marketplace, and improve data collection on the formula market.
The Access to Baby Formula Act, H.R. 7791, provides additional flexibility to make it easier for low-income women and children who rely on Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children(WIC) benefits to purchase infant formula. This is particularly important because nearly half of all infant formula is purchased using WIC benefits and because 89 percent of WIC participants purchase formula from Abbott Nutrition, the manufacturer whose closed plant sparked the shortage crisis.
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