Many families with newborn babies are feeling the pinch with the national shortage of baby formula. 

US Congresswomen Cindy Axne says she voted for two pieces of legislation to address the ongoing baby formula shortage caused by the shutdown of the Abott manufacturing plant. Axne says the bill called “Access to Baby Formula Act,” will ensure families dependent on (WIC) Women, Infants and Children get affordable formula. Along with the “Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act,” providing the (FDA) Food and Drug Administration with $28 million to address the current shortage. 

“Let’s make sure that we don’t run into these issues again. But that’s why we passed this bill. I was the only Iowan in the House to vote to make sure that we had baby formula on ourselves. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re feeding our kids. And so we passed that bill to fix these issues.”

Some lawmakers in opposition Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act legislation say that the FDA made the problem worse by shutting down Abbot without a backup plan.

“But we should make sure that any time that the FDA is going in and trying to do something that is for the better health and safety of Americans, that they aren’t strapping us with some other unintended outcome.”

President Joe Biden signed the Access To Baby Formula Act into law and the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act passed the US House and is awaiting a vote from the Senate.