Extremist agenda would roll back baby formula regulations
A new analysis finds that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a Republican presidency, would impose aggressive new restrictions and other constraints on food assistance programs that would significantly increase hunger for millions of children, spike nutrition-related diseases, and eliminate the safety regulations on baby formula.
The analysis, “How Project 2025 would leave kids and babies hungrier, less healthy,” finds that the extremist policy would end a program that allows 20 million children in high-poverty schools to receive free meals. It would also increase summertime hunger and academic backsliding, according to the brief, published today by First Focus on Children, by endingall summer meal assistance for K-12 students.
Child nutrition experts particularly are concerned by a Project 2025 proposal to deregulate the baby formula industry.The authors aim to eliminate regulations that “unnecessarily delay the manufacture and sale” of baby formula, claiming that safety and labeling regulations were partially responsible for the formula shortage in 2021. Current regulations involve standards around quality control, recordkeeping, recall, nutrient quality, and other issues. A Michigan-based formula manufacturer that failed to meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, was linked to two infant deaths and multiple hospitalizations in 2022. Recall protocols, which could be at risk under this plan, prevented many other infants from becoming sick.
Read “How Project 2025 would leave kids and babies hungrier, less healthy,” at this link.