Rep. Malliotakis Votes Against Formula for Starving Babies

The Last Thing New Yorkers Need Right Now is Corporate Greed and Rep. Malliotakis Standing In The Way Of Feeding Our Children

May 20, 2022

New York, NY: Today, Chris Fleming, Unrig Our Economy NYC spokesman, issued the following statement holding Rep. Malliotakis accountable for voting against formula for starving babies.

“Despite parents across Staten Island and the nation scrambling to find formula to feed their infants, in a stunning display of callousness and cruelty, Congresswoman Malliotakis voted against emergency funding to address the shortage. If Rep. Malliotakis had her way, the baby formula shortage – a crisis created by corporate greed and consolidation – would continue as long as possible so she could exploit it for political gain. The people of New York’s 11th Congressional District deserve solutions to their problems. The last thing New Yorkers need right now is corporate greed and Rep. Malliotakis standing in the way of feeding our children.”

Background

Rep. Malliotakis voted against H.R. 7790, the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022. The bill provides $28 million in aid to the Food and Drug Administration to address the shortage of baby formula.
Parents across the country are reeling due to an infant formula shortage. The shortage can be traced back to a February recall of contaminated formula manufactured by Abbott Nutrition and the subsequent closure of Abbott’s Sturgis, MI plant. But this crisis is really a convergence of two dangerous trends: extreme market consolidation and corporate greed
A whistleblower has accused Abbott Nutrition of delaying maintenance and repairs at its Sturgis facility for years before the plant closed. But Abbott still found the cash to approve $5 billion in stock buybacks at the end of last year.
Not only did Abbott hand out billions to their shareholders, but they even bragged about having “the flexibility” to increase prices as their net earnings climbed to nearly $7.1 billion.

###

Unrig Our Economy NYC is a local campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. When the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding greedy and the politicians who enable them accountable.