Representative Adriano Espaillat Voted to Improve Families’ Access to Baby Formula. WASHINGTON, DC – This week, Representative Adriano Espaillat (NY-13) helped pass two bills that will improve families’ access to infant formula, ensure every baby has the nutrition they need to live and develop and prevent this crisis from potentially happening again.
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 resources for personnel working on formula issues, help the agency stop fraudulent baby formula from entering the marketplace and improve data collection on the formula market.
“I share the frustrations of women and families across the nation who are living in panic, worried their babies will go hungry. It is outrageous and criminal that in the world’s richest country, families are frantically searching for baby formula. Even more frustrating is the shortage was avoidable. The national infant formula shortage was driven by a company’s recall of product. We must investigate the monopolization of the U.S. formula industry and hold bad actors accountable. We must examine how we got here and activate policies to guarantee it never happens again. We must improve supply chain resiliency, market sustainability, and product diversification— it is quite literally a matter of life and death. By passing this bill, Congress is ensuring that the FDA can end the current shortage and help prevent it from ever happening again,” said Rep. Espaillat.
Regrettably, the infant formula shortage has taken an especially dangerous toll on vulnerable women and children who use Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits to purchase formula. In response, the Access to Baby Formula Act (H.R. 7791) provides flexibility so that low-income families can continue purchasing safe infant formula with their WIC benefits during a crisis, such as a supply chain disruption.
“As with most injustices, this crisis is disproportionately impacting women of color, children in foster care, LGBTQ families, and has particularly affected women and children who rely on WIC benefits to purchase formula. WIC participants represent our nation’s most vulnerable families, and the Access to Baby Formula Act ensures we do not leave them behind. By providing increased flexibilities, this legislation is delivering on WIC’s promise to provide families in need with the nutrition children need to live and develop,” Rep. Espaillat continued.
The Access to Baby Formula Act is particularly important as nearly half of all infant formula is purchased using WIC benefits and 89 percent of WIC participants purchased formula from Abbott Nutrition—the manufacturing plant that closed and spurred the shortage crisis.
In February 2022, an Abbott Nutrition facility recalled several infant formula products (including Similac, Alimentum and EleCare) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to consumers not to use these recalled products.
To learn more about the Access to Baby Formula Act, click here. Representative Espaillat is the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and his congressional district includes Harlem, East Harlem, West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill and the north-west Bronx. First elected to Congress in 2016, Representative Espaillat is serving his third term in Congress. Representative Espaillat currently serves as a member of the influential U.S. House Committee on Appropriations responsible for funding the federal government’s vital activities. He is also a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), where he serves in a leadership role as the Second Vice Chair and is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, where he serves as Deputy Whip. Representative Espaillat also currently serves as a Senior Whip of the Democratic Caucus. To find out more about Rep. Espaillat, visit online at https://espaillat.house.gov/. | 
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