Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
House Panel Calls Out Big Companies For Selling Tainted Baby Food
Axios: Baby Food Brands Slammed By Lawmakers Over Toxic Heavy Metals
Manufacturers "knowingly" sold baby food that contained heavy metals including arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury, according to a House Oversight subcommittee report, published Wednesday. These metals are in the World Health Organization's top 10 chemicals of concern for infants and children, and can affect brain development, according to Harvard Health Publishing. The companies cited either failed to recall contaminated food or were lax in testing, the report found. (Dam, 9/30)
CNN: Manufacturers Allowed Baby Food Contaminated With Heavy Metals To Remain On Shelves, Lawmakers Say
Gerber and Beech-Nut failed to properly test and remove baby foods with dangerous levels of inorganic arsenic from the market, while Sprout Foods Inc., Walmart's Parent's Choice and Campbell's Plum Organics baby food were lax in testing and controlling for heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium, according to a US Congressional report released Wednesday by the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. (LaMotte, 9/29)
In other news from Capitol Hill —
The Washington Post: Federal Employees Health Benefits Program Enrollees Face An Average 3.8 Rise In Rates For 2022
Premiums for federal employees will rise by 3.8 percent on average in 2022, the second straight year of moderate increases despite the coronavirus pandemic, the government announced Wednesday. The pandemic has led to increased costs in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the Office of Personnel Management said, including roughly $1 billion to test and treat coronavirus patients. But those costs have been partly offset by enrollees skipping routine medical procedures, the OPM said. (Yoder, 9/29)
Fox News: GOP Senators Introduce Bill To Block Federal Agencies From Requiring COVID-19 Vaccination
A group of Republican senators introduced legislation that protects Americans' health records by preventing federal agencies under President Joe Biden from using COVID-19 vaccine passports or requiring proof of vaccination. Text of the legislation, named the Prevent Unconstitutional Vaccine Mandates for Interstate Commerce Act, says it prohibits "the Department of Transportation and other agencies from promulgating rules requiring a person to provide proof of COVID–19 vaccination in order to engage in interstate commerce or travel, and for other purposes." (Morris, 9/29)
Roll Call: Eschewing Zoom, Don Young AWOL For 19 Months Of Markups
Don Young, the longest serving Republican in Congress, hasn't voted in his committees since February 2020. (Wehrman, 9/30)
