Paper questions efficacy of infant forumla additives

On June 4, 2010 an important paper regarding federal policy on infant formula additives was released by The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities in Washington DC: http://www.cbpp.org/files/6-4-10fa.pdf. The Center’s analysis questions the wisdom of using taxpayer dollars to pay for costly ingredients being added with increasing frequency to infant formula and other WIC foods. These ingredients include DHA and ARA (long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids), prebiotics, probiotics, lutein, lycopene, and betacarotene. WIC spent $850 million on infant formula in 2009 with $91 million of that (more than 10%) traced to the purchase of the higher priced formulas with functional ingredients. The Center, a respected Washington think tank, urges Congress to require USDA to commission independent scientific reviews of the clinical significance and evidence of benefits of “functional ingredients” in WIC formulas and other foods, to protect the Program from costly expenditures, and to keep all consumers more fully informed about these additives. Infant formula manufacturers decide which formulas WIC offers. Neither the FDA nor the USDA determine if additives are beneficial, necessary, or offer the benefits claimed by formula makers. The evidence regarding benefits of DHA and ARA in infant formula is inconclusive, yet the addition of these additives increased the price of formula by 7%-30%. This paper recommends that USDA be given the statutory authority to require the Institute of Medicine to review the claimed benefits of these ingredients so that USDA can base decisions of use on evidence rather than manufacturers’ claims.