Attention child nutrition shoppers no-brainer for WIC in CNA

House leaders will need to decide whether to protect the Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) from almost $100 million annually
in potentially unnecessary costs or let the formula and additives industry
continue to reap handsome profits from the program.

Just before adjourning in August, the Senate passed a stripped-down
version of the CNA which quietly dropped a modest WIC reform that was
making the infant formula industry unhappy. Fiscal prudence and good
science should have made this reform a no-brainer but industry lobbyists with
the help of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were able to kill the common-sense
provision at the last minute.

The language in question would direct USDA, WIC’s
administrator to establish a science-based process for assessing whether or
not WIC should offer foods that contain new “functional ingredients.” These include
additives like DHA/ARA, “probiotics,” and others, which are increasingly
showing up in infant formula, baby food, juice, milk, eggs, bread, and other WIC-allowable
items. These “value-added” foods are more expensive, and are heavily
marketed as improving a baby’s immunity, brain development, or digestion.
However, there is no
clear scientific consensus that they confer any health benefits to
full-term infants or toddlers. The WIC program provides healthy foods, nutrition
education, and health care referrals to more than 9 million low-income women
and their young children, serving almost half of all infants in the United
States. WIC is by far the nation’s largest purchaser of formula, accounting for
60% of total sales.

Right now, no agency in
the federal government looks systematically at the research to determine
whether or not functional ingredients provide the benefits being touted. FDA has
the authority to regulate ingredient safety,
but not the efficacy, of these “new,
improved” foods and formulas, and thus can’t regulate accuracy of the related marketing
claims. USDA’s Economic Research Service recently determined
that functional ingredients in infant formula are costing WIC upwards of $90 million annually in additional expenditures—that’s more
than 10% of WIC’s infant formula budget. A few years ago, every other WIC food
item was scrutinized by the Institute
of Medicine, to determine that there was value to including them in updated
packages. There is no reason that new functional ingredients shouldn’t undergo
a similar review. With looming deficits, it’s crucial to ensure every
dollar spent by WIC is spent wisely, so that taxpayers – and participants — get
best value.

The CNA bills passed out of both House and Senate
Committees contained language that would provide USDA with explicit authority
to evaluate the public health benefits of offering WIC foods with new
ingredients. Plain-language results would also be shared with all consumers.
You might think that companies confident in their products’ value would welcome
the chance for a federal stamp of approval, not fight it.  But the Big
Three formula manufacturers—Nestle, Mead Johnson, and Abbot Laboratories – did
just that. They have offices and facilities in a number of states, as do
the makers of the additives, in particular Martek Biosciences Corporation, the
only manufacturer of DHA in the country (DHA is already in virtually all infant
formulas, so the provision is not intended to undo that). The PAC of
Abbott Laboratories, a global pharmaceutical company, alone gave more than $1.5
million in federal campaign contributions in the 2008 election cycle and the
PAC has made approximately $1 million in expenditures this cycle. Martek hired DC
lobbyist Lanny Davis to open doors on Capitol Hill.

Anti-hunger advocates, WIC, and public health supporters
are urging the House not accede to the Senate’s stripped-down version of the CNA,
but to move the bill passed out
of Education and Labor Committee instead.  Without a show of courage from
the House leadership, the story of WIC and functional ingredients could turn
out to be yet another well-known Washington narrative — powerful, wealthy
corporations fighting straightforward, evidence-based policymaking. Marketing hype and confusing labels in today’s
supermarket aisles can befuddle even the savviest shoppers. The
opportunity to protect WIC’s integrity is in the hands of Congress. Let’s
hope the big bucks- lobbying push on this modest proposal doesn’t fool Members.

Laurie True is the Executive Director of
the California WIC Association, representing the largest WIC program in the
nation. She is a public health nutritionist and has advocated on low-income
food policy issues for the past 25 years.