(NewsNation) — A plan unveiled by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to provide more oversight into the nation’s baby formula industry is welcomed and much needed, doctors say, after reports of dangerous levels of lead and other forever chemicals were discovered in dozens of brands of formula.
Kennedy recently introduced “Operation Stork Speed,” which tightens the reins on infant formula manufacturing three years after a nationwide formula shortage due to deadly bacteria being discovered at a manufacturing plant.
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“There hasn’t been legislation on baby formula since 1980, and so I think transparency is going to be great,” Dr. Dyan Hes, a board-certified pediatrician, told NewsNation. “We want the formula we’re feeding our patients, our babies, our families, we want it regulated, and we want transparency. We want to know what’s in these formulas we’re giving the kids.”
Hes said that the United States does not have regulations for heavy metals in infant formula, which has caused American manufacturers to follow those used in foreign countries. She worries that large amounts of unregulated infant formulas are being imported into the U.S. that are then not being stored properly, which leads to bigger problems, Hes said.
Hes learned of one case of formula being stored in a facility where the product was kept in a 120-degree environment, which could not have happened if it was FDA-approved.
“This matters because this is when (an infant’s) brain is forming, and this is also (their) rapid period of growth,” she told NewsNation. “So you want your children to get optimal formula – the closest to breast milk that’s available.
“So these are the kinds of laws that we need, and the changes and the transparency so that every baby is getting the best nutrition they can from it from the start.”
