Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Go live now, Tom. So we are we we're joined remotely by you. The world is watching on YouTube. And as I said, we may have one other committee member joining. But if you'd like to introduce yourself, so we're here to take testimony to hear your testimony on h five thirty six, which is an act relating to toxic heavy metals in baby food products. And we're gonna be joined at some point in the course of the next hour by another witness. We have taken some testimony on the bill. We're we're familiar with what's there. We understand that similar legislation has passed in other states. You were recommended as somebody who could help us better understand why this is important. And I'm gonna, with that, just turn it over to you.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Got it. With your permission, I prepared a PowerPoint that may be useful for us. It's a little text heavy, but it's only 11 slides and we can I plan on covering it about ten to fifteen minutes? Does that work? That would

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: be fine. Yes. Thank you. All right.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Can you see the slides?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: All right. It's always good when I hear that. Let me just slide here. So I wanted to just give you the agenda is a little bit about me and Unleaded Kids, which is a group I represent. Some key milestones for context of FDA's Closer to Zero program, where it is prioritized reducing lead, cadmium, mercury, and inorganic arsenic primarily in baby foods. Then we'll talk about why we need state action. Effectively, what is FDA's action levels and why do they not provide market incentives to reduce levels? Then we'll talk about California's innovative approach that is effectively reflected in this bill and why it's working better than anybody imagined, or at least me. Then we'll go over what happened and we can see how it played out, talk about infant formula, then look at state leadership and what role states like Vermont can have in it. Adopting a similar bill helps. There's little pieces where you could do further, and at the end, I'll give you some potential amendments are those little pieces where we've found problems in California and other states that Vermont can address. Does that sound like a plan?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Super.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Okay. I'm a chemical engineer. I'm an attorney. I've focused on chemical safety my whole life. When I was young, I fell in love with the periodic table of the elements. I focused on in workplace, community, home, food, water, wherever. I've also worked making drugs, pesticides, food additives, and industrial chemicals. Since about 1996, when I was at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, I've been focused a lot on lead. I was the children's health coordinator for the agency when I was an assistant commissioner there. I've since served in Improving Kids' Environment, National Center for Healthy Housing, Pew Charitable Trusts, and most recently in the Environmental Defense Fund, always chemical focused. In 2023, I really wanted to dive into lead, so I founded Unleaded Kids, and I'm the national director of that organization. So let's give you some context here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Excuse me. Don't mind us interrupting. We've got a question here from representative Just

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: quickly, Tom, you know where we're from. Where are you at?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Oh, I'm in DC, but Indiana is home for me. Born thank in Kentucky, grew up in Cincinnati, but Indiana is where we raised the kids and have been in DC after my kids graduated from high Thank you. Okay, so some key milestones. Just two slides on that, but the context matters. In 2011, the National Toxicology Program, which is the group that tells us about chemical hazards, said basically very low levels of exposure, levels that we thought were safe are no longer safe. That has become the scientific consensus that we need to drive the levels as low as we can. That doesn't mean that we need to investigate every child with any lead in their blood, but we need to try to prevent that exposure, even the low lead exposure. In 2017, EPA, we normally thought about lead as paint and then after Flint water, but in 2017, partly in response to Flint, EPA said, where is the lead really coming from? And while paint is still the source of the highest levels of exposure and water's still out there, what they said is lead in children's food and food is a significant source of children's exposure. And it's mostly because all children eat food, and if it's in that food, they all get a low level of exposure. We worry about, we investigate children when they're over 3.5, and Vermont does a good job of checking those children. Lead in food, the dietary contribution is around 0.25 to one microgram per deciliter. So it's going to put a child over 3.5 under most circumstances, but it is enough that we've got a problem and we can make progress. So a year later, FDA said, We're going to take on this issue, and they identified cadmium, lead, mercury, and inorganic arsenic because they all affected children's brain development or other development. Lead's clearly connected. Mercury's clearly connected. Inorganic arsenic is that's new evidence about the brain about impacting brain development in a similar way for lead. Cadmium is an emerging one that we're just learning about. So they call these all toxic elements. You may have heard toxic heavy metals. The chemist in me says arsenic's not heavy and it's not a metal. So we use the, FDA chose the term toxic elements. They also set an interim goal, they called it a reference level, that said FDA should contribute no more than 10% of CDC's blood lead reference value. So they should, the children, food should be no more than 0.35 in it. And what we find is that's a problem for kids. So on the next slide, we get to the next ones of milestones before we get into some of the substance. A groundbreaking report was released in February 2021 by the House Oversight Committee that they had asked the companies for the lead testing results for baby food and for cadmium and mercury and arsenic. And then they publicly released all of that. And the results were shocking. Some of the levels were high, some were low. And what we saw is that some lots had high levels and some lots had low levels. It looked as if the companies weren't aggressively seeking to reduce those levels. They were just wanting to keep them off the radar, low enough that FDA wouldn't do a recall. Now, to be clear, none of this is intentionally added. This is coming from the environment, this is coming from natural sources, but it's not being intentionally added, with one exception. In April 2021, FDA, in response to that house oversight report, released its Closer to Zero program. I like the term. We can't eliminate lead exposure. It's possible. We can't be lead free. And because there's no safe level, we can't be lead safe. So what they say is, we need to do all we can to reduce the exposure from all sources. So they're doing their part through the closer to zero. When I said not all sources have it's not intentionally added in all sources, the exception would be applesauce pouches imported from Ecuador were for some unknown reason they added lead chromate to cinnamon. And the levels were massive, like 10,000 parts per billion. And lots of people, children and adults, who relied on that were harmed by it. They had pretty high levels in their blood. We normally talk about 3.5. They had levels up about 20 or 25, and those were often adults. And it came from the intentional addition. As a result, FDA is routinely recalling cinnamon that they find with levels over 2,000 parts per billion. Cinnamon is the one food we eat a lot of. It's the one spice that goes into a lot of foods, and when we put it in, we often put it a lot.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And, Jed, do

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I have another question here?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yes. Just quickly, so as you reference here, these heavy metals coming mostly from ingredients or are a certain amount migrating off packaging into the ingredients?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: We don't think they're from packaging. We don't think they're from the equipment, although that can be the case. We think it's mostly from you raise them in the ground. That's why we find high levels in carrots and sweet potatoes. Sometimes it's from industrial contamination. Quinoa has large levels because Peru, where it's from, has a lot of lead mining and some other mineral mining. And there are ways we can do it. When you or when I peel a carrot, I take out the peeler and I scrape off a lot. When the manufacturers do it, they steam it and they only take off the thinnest level. So sometimes the levels in baby food are higher than what you make at home, but other times it's going to be better from the baby food companies. It's a mixed bag from the homemade food. Does that help?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yes, thank you.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Sometimes it gets higher. We'll also see grapes and fruit like apples often have it. The only intentional addition was lead arsenate was added to cotton fields and apple orchards back in the 40s and the 50s. That stopped, but it doesn't go away. So we'll still see some of that in apples and grape fields and some products. Okay? So in twenty twenty five, January, real early in January, FDA issued action levels. They were generally about 10 parts per billion for most baby foods. There were exemptions that I'm not crazy about, but they were half of EU's limits. EU set a limit generally of 20. And that's good. We like that. I still think FDA could have done better, but they did a good job. They also promised to issue limits for action levels for cadmium in inorganic arsenic, and they've been promising that since 2021 and it keeps getting kicked down the road. I'm told, just met with FDA leadership on Wednesday and they were saying, cadmium's next. Hope to get it out by the end of this year. So let me get that next slide here. So how do FDA set action levels? They're not health based. The action levels come out in guidance, but industry follows them. But don't let them tell you they're health based, unless lower is better. What they're generally doing is FDA samples the marketplace and they want to remove the top, the 5% of the worst products, or maybe 10% for baby foods. They're trying to remove the worst of the worst, so to speak. For baby food, they generally aim at the top 10%, but they'll often settle for one or two percent. How well does it work? Well, the industry follows them, but says it's safe, but we know there's no safe level of exposure to lead. We can compare them to FDA's what they call interim reference levels. It's an interim goal, an interim target. And they say two point two micrograms per day for children and eight point eight micrograms per day for pregnant individuals. The levels in the blood for a pregnant woman, the fetus is about 80% of that level. So it could still be very high levels. So in 2024, FDA looked at this and about ten percent of young children were at least two point four micrograms per day. So a little over ten percent of kids are already over that limit, yet FDA set those limits of ten parts per billion. Cadmium's a really big one. It screws up the kidney, it's the biggest effect, And about fifty percent of young children, about twelve million children younger than six, consume more cadmium than FDA considers safe. And lead are top of the list. So California was wrestling with how to move forward on this. How do we complement FDA's action? And what they did is they acknowledged that with rare exceptions, toxic elements are not intentionally added. They're from the environment. But we've used, we're still using lead in gasoline for small engine airplanes. Every day, they trickle it over you. It's mostly those small airplanes that are running on gasoline and not diesel fuel or jet fuel. With that House Oversight Committee and other reports by Consumer Reports that Brian Ronholm will cover shortly, what we see is that there's a lot of variation. When you see some brands high, some brands low, you know there's opportunities to do better. And those opportunities give parents the ability to make choices, to find the ones with the lowest level. They could choose between different brands that have lower products or, you know, like getting out of sweet potatoes or getting out of carrots or finding the lots with the lowest levels. We don't want to discourage them from eating sweet potatoes or carrots. They're good for you. What we want to do is encourage the companies to source better and to find better ingredients. It's often sourcing better. Sometimes it's growing it better. And so out of that, the General Assembly introduced AB eight ninety nine or enacted AB eight ninety nine, which required that the results be publicly posted in 2025. So we have a little over a year of experience

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: with it.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: They also required this QR code in the label to make it easy for parents to find the information. So we started seeing the results in 2025. So let me show you what happened. With Consumer Reports, we've been tracking it. On September 2025, what we found is that we're now at 20 of the 39 baby food companies are making the results publicly available. 17 require that you type in a lot code, which effectively requires that the parents buy it. And some of these, a lot of parents buy online, so they can't see it. They can find it on the shelf. And one company requires the parents to actually type in 28 digits to see the results. Accurately do that on their phone. If you get one digit wrong, it says, sorry, no results available. Two didn't have web pages, and what we're doing is finding that when you go to the company's web page for their product, it never tells you about the testing results. So, the only way is to actually go through the QR code. And we want to try to fix that. Many companies are touting their good levels. That's a good sign. And we see many more companies entering the market because now they see a way to compete not just on price or on nutrition, but also on these levels. We also see a lot of companies, while the bill says six parts per billion, almost all of them are testing down to one to two parts per billion. And that's a really good sign because they see that they need to be transparent. One company posted the 2024 results. They weren't required to, but they did anyway. And what you can see is the levels just kept going down as the date became closer. So companies are making actual progress when we see this. One of the problems is when, one of the claims is that parents freak out when they see this. Leads in my food! Well, most people know leads everywhere. Leads in my home. I have lead based paint on the outside of my home. I know lead's in the soil. What we need to do is parents get it. What they tend to do is like the transparency. They look at it and say, Oh, good, the company's being transparent with me. And then they look at other sources and say, to refine ones with the lowest levels. It's a factor in the decision making. We see no sign that parents have stopped buying baby foods. The market is still going strong. So let's talk about the infant formula exemption that's in this bill and it's been in all the bills. Right now, Maryland is proposing to remove it, and I would suggest the same for Vermont. We need to understand why it's there. In 'thirty two, and well, I should say in 2023, Abbott Nutrition had just done a massive recall of all of its products. People were scrambling to find baby food on the shelves. It was fragile market, is the way to frame it nice. It was chaos. And what's happened is that settled out. The market has responded. We got plenty on the market. We also didn't know what was really in it. Consumer Reports has done great studies over the years. Brian Runham will cover that. But we really didn't know much. We didn't have good studies to show not only is it present, but do we have high and low levels that give consumers the real choice? That changed in March 2025 when Consumer Reports published a study of 41 products. And to my surprise, Florida governor and the Department of Health published a study of 24 products just last month, and it found elevated levels of heavy metals, especially mercury, which hasn't been found in other studies, in two thirds of them. And they said it pointed to systemic problems in sourcing and manufacturing. For those who like links, you can follow the underlying text to get to the links. So we now have multiple sources that are saying we can do better. So, this shouldn't have been in there. That's a repeat. Sorry about that. Oh, I went backwards. There we go. So state leadership, California has enacted the bill. They also did it for prenatal vitamins where levels range from below 10 parts per billion to over 900 parts per billion. And they're looking at protein powders and spices. They're trying to extend the model. Maryland did a similar bill in 2024. They're now considering bills to add protein powder and to remove infant formula. Virginia and Illinois enacted laws in 2025 and Vermont is along with Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are considering baby fill bills like yours. So why should Vermont do it? Why should we need Vermont? Well, what happens is each state looks at opportunities to do better. And when you do that better, it has an impact. Companies are not going to create a brand just for Vermont. Yes, California makes a difference, but states look to each other. It's state leadership after all. And this doesn't do anything to diminish FDA's action levels, it complements it. FDA goes after the worst of the worst. This bill provides market based incentives to reduce those levels, and it reduces the burden on the state because the state health department doesn't have to do anything, doesn't have to report regulations or anything, it's self enforcing. Some potential amendments. One is remove the exemption for infant formula. It's time. We now know enough and we know we need to do it. And when, because it's such a significant source of food for that baby, it's too important not to know and parents won't want to know. Second, we wanted to put in a provision that says you can't require entry of a UPC number, a lot number, or proof of purchase in order to get the testing results. The law says publicly available, but some companies see it differently. Finally, we would like to see that the company's marketing pages for the product include a link to the testing results so that parents that are going shopping online can find it. That's what that last one does. A bill to do this or amendments to do this have been introduced in Maryland. Okay. I'm going backwards on that one. That is it. Let me stop sharing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Actually, before you keep sharing, Tom, if you don't mind, because I think we had a couple of questions that it might be if you pull it up again, it might be helpful to look at the text there.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Okay. Let's do that. And hold on. Let me

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sorry, didn't catch you in time.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Nope, I was going too fast. Looking at the clock.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: There

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: we go. Does that work?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. We see it again. Good. And representative Nelson has a question.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. You were you were I you answered it on your next slide. You kept saying remove formula on. And the first thing when I saw this bill, right, I thought, why aren't we including formula? And this page right here, pay you know, your page two lines Four. Three and four is exactly what we talked about yesterday to put formula in this because formula is baby food. Yeah. So thank you for that.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Good. Thank And the I get I tried to give the background that it was just a timing issue in California.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bartholomew.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm wondering about how these companies can make the information publicly available. Particularly, I think you said that it can vary by lots. So if you don't have a lot number, how would you know what testing you're looking at? How would a company do that?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Good question. So we've got a lot of examples. Are putting out lot numbers. So once you go to the product page, the page of testing results for the product, you can do a pull down menu for that lot or for that brand, or I'm sorry, for that product. And then it gives you all of the lots and you can look at them through pull down menus. The other one is Plum and Cerebelli and others. Just post them all in a big table so people can just filter it. They can download the spreadsheet and do what you want with it. So every company's got its own way. They're also providing a lot of context. Cerebelli is one company that puts per serving and concentration. So you can see that snacks might be a little teething biscuits might be a smaller amount than a puree. So everybody's got little different formats. I will say some of them put captchas up there, where you have to identify which photos have the bicycle or the motorcycle or the bridge. That's a bit frustrating, but companies all do it some different ways. I would love for the because there's an option in the bill for the state health department to ask for the data. I would love for them to give the companies a template and say, give us all this data and post it on their website. That's a burden to the agency, but having it in a common format allows, saves parents from having to scrape the data. Does that answer your question?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Burtt and more Brian?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, Tom, just three quick questions following up on your presentation here. One, we're a dairy state. So I was wondering if things like baby yogurt, do you see these heavy metals coming through in dairy products?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Good news is rarely. It doesn't show up in dairy products. Packaging doesn't, we don't think it's a source, but and there may be other things with packaging, but it's not we've just never seen it in milk. It's mostly the vegetables that are in the ground or close to the ground, squashes, carrots, the quinoa. It's in grains. You'll also see it in rice, but it's not, I've never seen, I can't recall ever seeing it, in looking at FDA's data for twenty five years in a dairy product.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Fantastic. Another one is, since so much is coming from soil, just what you mentioned, do you often see no difference in organic or non air, or say conventional carrots? Because the soil, I would assume, has legacy heavy metals in it from way back.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: There's no difference. We've looked and looked. There's no difference between organic and conventional, partly because those standards don't consider the use of pesticides. It might be an issue on some apples or where they planted on cotton fields because of the past use of lead arsenic, but we just don't see it. There's no reason to think it's going to be lower, and when the testing's been done, we haven't seen that difference.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Great, and last question. I asked yesterday whether, say, a mom is eating a lot of quinoa or cinnamon toast, do the heavy metals pass through in breast milk?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yes, they do pass through in breast milk. It's not quite 80. So it passes through from the blood to the placenta of the baby at about 80%, but it does pass through in breast milk. There's a big concern, I will tell you, one of the reasons why there's becoming a call for blood lead testing for pregnant individuals is because at that third trimester, lead that they were exposed to when they were young starts to dissolve out of the bone and expose the fetus. So knowing that's important and it is associated with preeclampsia. So knowing and testing pregnant individuals can have a lot of gain, but it does pass through the placenta and breast milk.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Thank you. And

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: you mentioned that arsenic isn't a heavy metal technically, so they're using a different term for this set of chemicals. Is there, I'm curious if the name of your organization is unleaded kids. Obviously you're looking at more chemicals than just lead. Are there other chemicals that we're needing to make sure we're keeping track of whether it's aluminum, it's not a heavy metal, but it's at higher rates, obviously there's concern. I'm just curious, I'm all for what this bill is doing, but is there an opportunity to make sure there isn't something else that we should be keeping track of in the process?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yeah, when I mentioned packaging, there's concerns about phthalates that may be contaminating them, microplastics, bisphenol A, PFAS, and so there's a concern with others and there are some testing results out there. Part of the thought is, let's start with the ones that FDA has identified, ones that we know there's no safe level of exposure, and then have that as a platform that can be built on it, when we get the evidence. Does that help?

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Yes, yeah, does.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Thank you. I don't have an easy other heavy metal or other toxic element to turn to that there's not good, there's good. We could talk about chrome as one, but chrome has nutritional advantages if it's in the right form. You will notice that we say we're testing for arsenic, but inorganic arsenic has the real risks, the neurological risks, it's because it's really hard to test for inorganic arsenic. So while you test for these four, you use the same method, get four results. And then if you see high levels of arsenic, what we've seen is good companies like Earth's Best goes ahead and tests for inorganic arsenic to help the consumer. So it was too much to ask them to do inorganic arsenic. That might be the one next step, but it's a much more expensive and labor intensive test.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Representative Nelson? Yeah, no, my question was gonna be about PFOA, PFAS and, you know, I kind of mentioned it, you know, are testing for it randomly. I don't know.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: I'm sorry. What?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: What's Where where what's your stance on PFAS?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: I don't like them in food. No.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I don't I don't like them in my cow food either.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: So the goal is to reduce the levels as much as possible. What we have to do is do enough testing of the food to be able to see whether there's those variations. That's starting to come in for infant formula for baby food. We're seeing it in bisphenol A and phthalates. It's just, to me, I think I would love to see those added. They are different tests and they're more expensive tests. So I haven't looked at the data. Brian may be able to add more because I think Brian, you have done some testing on that. He's on at 02:40.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. I had a question, Tom, about the circumstances in in 2023 involving Abbott and whether there's any likelihood that we might find ourselves in a similar situation. And I'm not sure what the circumstances were. I do remember there being quite a bit of news coverage on the shortage. If we were to expand the language here, expand the coverage of the bill to include formula, is there any risk that we would be contributing in the future to a shortage somehow inadvertently?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: I don't think so. This is only a test and disclose. There aren't any limits, and FDA sets them, they're gonna be manageable for the companies. So I don't think it would do anything to limit choices. And there are 40 brands out there, 40 products out there and multiple brands. So the market has come back more robust even with new market entries, and they're trying to increase that even more. So I don't see any impact because this is just a test and disclose. Be transparent and transparency doesn't cause the recalls. If you expand the different products, different chemicals, you might have that impact, but this is just to test and disclose. It uses market forces to make progress.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And then following up on the situation where you had to type in 22 different numbers on your phone, Do I understand correctly that what

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: we

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: would be requiring is every company would have to put a QR code on packaging and that when you scan the QR code, you're then brought to a website and at that point, you had to type in the numbers. Is that correct?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Exactly.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: In in this one example anyway.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yeah. You'd have to type in a UPC number, a lot number, Best Buy date. It was incredible. Most of them weren't that bad. And they've I think some of these companies have started to do better because California was starting to push back. And we were complaining a lot.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So ideally, would the QR code then bring you right to the page for the product and not require any other clicks?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: It would take you to the page for the product, but from there, you would have get access to the testing results.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. So you

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: do pull down menus or tables to see the rest.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Good. I'm following that. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee or yes. Representative Bartholomew.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: How would parents be educated to even know to ask this question? I mean, who who would go to the grocery store thinking that their baby food they're buying is poisonous?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yeah, this is one we wrestled with that when working on the California version, and that's when they settled on the QR code. That when you look at the label and you're re if you're at the stage of reading the ingredients and you see a QR code that says, for toxic or for toxic element testing results, click here or scan here, a lot of people will take those and move on. So it's the QR code and that for testing, element testing results, see it here, that's on the label. A lot of parents are shopping online, so that's why we need similar language on the product's webpage.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I've done it about toxic, link saying toxic element.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think so, yeah. So that language is in the draft bill, the toxic element testing?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yes. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And then I see it on the screen here. So this what you're showing us on the screen at the moment is for direct sales?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: That is for direct sales. It was also trying to bring in oh, sorry about that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's okay. I don't think we need to have you bring it up again.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yeah, was added in California because they're concerned that like a Target or a Walmart, people go to those and to be able to see the product page from there, they could be able to get the information too. That's what's meant by the third party.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Anything else that you wanted to add,

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Tom? I wanna say thank you. Thank you for considering the bill. Thanks for considering ways to make it more effective. And I just appreciate this opportunity.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, well, thank you for joining us. And we've got I think Brian has joined us, our next witness. If you if you'd like to stay, please feel free.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: I can

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: stay, Tom. Thank you so much, committee members, for this opportunity. Just a brief introduction of me. So I'm Brian Ronholm, and I lead food policy for Consumer Reports. We're a national nonprofit, has been around for ninety years. We just celebrated our ninetieth birthday a couple weeks ago. So we were born in 1936, and hopefully you're all familiar with our work, our publication, particularly that rates vehicles and appliances. We also work on advocacy efforts that that help protect consumers. Just a little background on myself. My my background is more on the on the policy making side, and that I was a congressional staffer for congresswoman Rosa DeLoro of Connecticut twenty years ago, and then was able to become deputy undersecretary for food safety at the US Department of Agriculture. And I served in that role from 2011 to 2016. So I've got good news as a staff former staffer, I always like to deliver good news to committee members and that I'm going to be very brief because there's a lot of alignment with what Tom has already outlined for you all. And Unleaded Kids and Consumer Reports, as you saw, work very closely together on a lot of these issues. So we're both in strong support of this bill and also would urge the the two modifications that Tom had outlined in terms of not exempting infant formula and also making the information available to consumers so it's readily accessible. The need for the bill is very apparent, as you've heard. Exposure to heavy metals is harmful to all humans, but it's especially acute for children, and especially in their early childhood because it's a period of rapid development and growth. And so their brains are still developing, and you're introducing these toxic elements into their bodies at such a young age can really cause some harm in the long term or increase the risk for it because you get the accumulation of toxic element exposure. It's potentially much greater during a relatively short period of time of this very important development period. And even at low levels, they accumulate over time, and it can lead to potentially harmful conditions that you've probably heard of by now, anemia, kidney damage, developmental and neurological delays, nervous system damage, and reproductive toxicity, as well as cancer. And, you know, children are estimated to take in about three times as much food as adults compared to their body mass. So just think of how much of that they're consuming in these products and the risk that is increased when there's elevated levels of these toxic elements. We've been working Consumer Reports has been working on these issues, on food issues particularly, and toxic elements, for well over fifteen years. And some of the landmark studies I'll just go over briefly. In 2018, we published a study of 50 nationally distributed packaged foods for babies and toddlers, and what we found was over two thirds or 68% of those products had worrisome levels of at least one heavy metal element, toxic element, and 15 of those foods would pose potential health risks to a child regularly eating just one serving or less per day. And we followed that up in 2023 when we tested baby food again. This study consisted of 14 products, seven of which we had tested back in 2018. And we found the levels of certain heavy metals increased in three of those products, and the worrisome levels we found were in products such as rice, sweet potatoes, and snack food. So just as Tom alluded to, it's a lot of those types of ingredients that are grown into the ground and get absorbed and end up in these products. And so just last year, we tested 41 types of powdered infant formula for a number of toxic elements, arsenic lead, BPA, acrylamide, and PFAS. And we've looked at both established brands that established national brands that all parents are familiar with. And we also looked at newer startup brands, private label brands, such as ones that you find at grocery store or or mega stores, and also imported brands. And some of those results were concerning as well. About half of those samples we tested contained potentially harmful levels of at least one contaminant. But here's the important part, though. There was some good news on this front regarding our test results in that of the 41 products that we tested, 21 could be rated as a top choice, meaning they had low levels or nondetect levels of any of these toxic elements, and 10 additional brands were rated as good choices. So we had 21 top choices and 10 good choices. And that's important to know because what it demonstrates is that it is possible for manufacturers to make a product with low levels of these toxic elements. And Tom pointed out to kind of the additional work that was done by the Florida Department of Health and certainly highlights the need for the bill as well. I know you had already heard about how heavy metals get into food and it's naturally occurring in the soil or groundwater. And what contributes to this problem further is that the previous widespread use of leaded gasoline, lead paints, lead based pesticides, and other manufacturing processes that contribute to these higher levels because it does end up in our soil and and groundwater. But but again, I would emphasize that the good news is that our test results show that it is possible to make a product with low readings, and it just really is a matter of companies identifying the the right areas to source from in order to achieve those low results. And, you know, Tom already outlined the action in the other states that a lot of us have been involved in. Certainly appreciate your efforts too, and we hope that you're able to move this bill forward as well and kinda add to the list of states that really want to see some change happen here. And that brings me to my last point about how FDA is not going to rescue consumers anytime soon. We're not gonna see any meaningful regulatory action from FDA for quite a while. You certainly have seen more discussion of these issues over the past year or so with the new administration. They talk about it a lot, but what we're going to see is they're they're gonna be trying to win the press release on a lot of this issue, but it's not really gonna result in any meaningful regulatory action. So they have a report coming out in April that's gonna have show some results of their own testing that they've done. And they also have another announcement coming out soon, But ultimately, it's still going to require an extensive regulatory process for them to move forward with anything meaningful. And, you know, we can't afford to wait. Consumers can't afford to wait, and states can't afford to wait. So that's I certainly want to emphasize that point and appreciate the opportunity to be with you all and and discuss this issue.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Thank you, Brian. You can take a few questions.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Absolutely.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Great.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: I might ask for Tom's assistance in terms of technical.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, chairman. Thank you, Brian. And I do enjoy my Consumer Report magazine. My wife started to get a subscription a couple years ago, and we love that. So much. You enjoy them.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: I would

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: think that the health and human service secretary, Bobby Kennedy, would be very excited to look at these reports and weigh in on this issue. It maybe helps spur these talks to go around and and but we're we're, I think, I'm committed to seeing this go through here.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Thank you. Yeah. Certainly, the the secretary has made some some great announcements. And, honestly, compared to what the agency has been focused on over the past several decades across several administrations, it's certainly reassuring to have a secretary actually talk about these issues when before it was an issue that perhaps was on the back burner for a lot of previous HHS secretaries and FDA commissioners for that matter. But ultimately, an extensive regulatory process is going to be involved. And certainly our tech, our test results captured their attention. As a courtesy, we always share those test results in advance of our studies coming out. And it just so happened that when we shared our most recent data, it was the following day that they announced the Operation Stork Speed Initiative, which is reassuring that we can have that kind of effect. And so now it's just a matter of being able to establish something meaningful under that process.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Brian, you mentioned this in your presentation. Are you starting to see the big companies, you know, the Nestle's and Danone's pivoting to source carrots, quinoa, whatever, you know, in places where the soil, you know, has a lot less lead or or in it.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Yeah. It's it's our sense that they are moving in that direction if they haven't already, just based on kind of the private conversations that we've had with industry folks. So they're aware of this issue. They're mindful. They're concerned when they have these high readings. And so when they do and when we point them out, they're receptive to the data and certainly look for ways to lower their readings, whether it's, you know, sourcing from a different region of the world or even examining their their own processing equipment. You know, Tom had mentioned that it's less likely that it happens there, but they certainly take that initiative to scrutinize that process as well. So it is it is reassuring that they do take those steps. And, again, this is this is something that a lot of companies, especially the bigger ones, already do. They already test for these toxic elements. It's just a matter of, you know, we would like for them to disclose this information, make it readily and easily available to consumers so that consumers can make that comparison.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And is it an economic opportunity for farmers or agencies of ag to say like, thing about our carrots, we make carrots that have no lid in them. I mean, around the world, they catching onto this too?

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Absolutely, absolutely. And we've certainly seen some brands promote the fact that they had low readings during our test results. So, you know, from a competitive standpoint, it is something that they're able to highlight.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's free cash. I

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: wonder what Vermont ratings are.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Brian, if a consumer successfully and, you know, easily able to navigate the QR code and brought to the page that the manufacturers required to make available. How how easy is it for a typical consumer to interpret the information on on one of these pages?

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Yeah. No. That that's a great question. And, you know, what we've seen what Tom and I encountered when we've done our research into how companies are complying is a lot of them will offer a kind of a frame of reference, a frame of regulatory reference of what the the readings mean. And I don't have a science background, so I may lean on Tom a little bit just in terms of of how that information is presented by the companies. But yeah, I mean, the bottom line for consumers is, you know, especially when you look at something like lead, where there's no safe level at all, you know, and especially for children. For the consumer, I think their immediate mindset is going to be, and this kind of bears out with our surveys, is they're gonna look for the ones that have the lowest numbers, obviously. Right? It's just sort of human nature regardless of kind of what the frame of regulatory preference might be.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Would you like to comment?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: No, no, he got it. We've seen that. We've seen him choose it. And I will tell lead is the one that usually drives the discussion. They don't know much about cadmium, but arsenic is a increasing concern.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Basil.

[Unidentified Representative (addressed as “Representative Basil”)]: Yeah, I have a question. I'm just wondering sort of from a general public health perspective, how can a population, I mean, there a way to know if you have high lead in vegetables, for example, in a community without intensive testing? I mean, we have a huge agricultural community here in Vermont and like, how do we know? For adult consumption, which areas might be impacted?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: California or Vermont Department of Health has adopted soil cleanup standards that are the most protective in the country. It's half of what California has. They have 41 parts per million in the soil. That's about background level. So they're already trying. However, you really don't know unless you're testing these products and systematically testing. What farmers could do is do more testing and then market it to the baby food companies as the lowest. Because of the rural background, you're gonna be in good shape in Vermont. We worry more about homemade food when you grow it in your garden in the back and you have lead based paint around your house, that's gonna be the bigger risk. So we want people to buy from farmers. We just need farmers to realize that they can do these tests. The tests are about $110 for each one to get all four results. And to do that in the market and see it. A lot of farmers are scared to look, but these kinds of bills force them to look. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Representative Burtt.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: I was just gonna comment on my own experience. I'm a maple syrup producer and I remember back when I was a kid that an inspector came to our sugar house and took a sample of our syrup to test for lead. And we ended up being, we had the lowest level in the state when they reported back to us. So I was pretty proud of that one. Over the years, the progression of that we've had to remove, we used to use low level lead brass components, but the industry has changed where you can only have stainless steel and laws in California were originally like drove that to happen even in our industry here in Vermont because California is such a large consumer of maple syrup. So I've seen the lead issue firsthand and this was when I was early nineties that they were coming around doing the testing back then. They don't test anymore. I think it's just because we've updated. They may test it at the package or level, but they don't come to SugarHouse anymore because we've all upgraded our equipment to stainless steel.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: It's a great story how you, if you focus on an issue, you can solve it. We don't want to panic. We just want to be transparent, even if it's scary to do that testing at the beginning. And we can reduce exposure from all areas, sources, and driving closer to zero. That's why I love that message. The brass and the bronze fixtures, their standards keep getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: For few breath, Alony? Just point out that new equipment's pretty expensive. New stainless steel pans don't come cheap.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: It's true, but we kept our market live and well because we made those adaptations. It's just the nature of how you got to do business.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, Griffin and Nelson? Yeah. Thank you. What what I would like to see is a few samples of those QR codes sometime that we could click on and look at. That that would be really helpful. I mean, I don't think we can run the Shahs right now and find one anywhere because we don't have the law. But if if if you gentlemen had something that you could send to our website we could go do and and then click and just see what it's like and

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Maybe I'll we could figure it out.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: We do try to Yeah. I've been to targets in about five or six states and found the QR, all the products, most of the products have had the QR codes on them. So I bet you that if you go to your Shaw's, you're gonna find the QR codes on some of them. And those brands that don't have it, let us know and we can have a chat with them to try to help them understand the rules. They were allowed in California if they made it in 2024, before not to have a QR code, but most baby food only has a shelf life of one year, six months. Some of the jars, glass jars go a little longer. So I hope you see baby, see the QR codes. I will say some of the brands make it really small and they stretch it out on a shrink label, which is a bit of a problem.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Is that something that we could be looking at? I mean, putting parameters around the size of the code or shape of the code?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: You could. My experience is the parents who try it give them the feedback that they care about most. Somebody who scans it and can't get it because it's distorted. This is beach nut is the one who requires 28 digits or 28 characters. And they have the shrink-wrap that makes it the hardest to see. I think they're now figuring out that consumers demand it. So in some ways, consumers can drive this one once you set the basic system up. And that can include expanding, companies can test for more products, more more chemicals. This sets the stage and you can add them more as you find more problems. They even drop them if they solve all the problems.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I don't you know the saying, if mama ain't happy, nobody gonna be happy. Brian.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Just to follow-up on this, we had a concern the other day if if the the testing has to be conducted by the maker of the baby foods. What happens with smaller, say a Vermont based company that makes baby foods or a New England based one that obviously doesn't have the resources that Nestle and Danone do?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: So there's only like five or six brands that dominate the market, but there are so many of these small brands. That's what we found in working with Consumer Reports is that probably half of the brands are new to the market and have found the resources at a $100 per lot and a lot would be like, could be as long as a month's production. It's not, nobody's complained about it being cost prohibitive. If you started requiring testing for inorganic arsenic, you'll start to drive those costs up. That's why we picked these four. So I don't think it's going to be cost prohibitive. In fact, because it's a market advantage, you can tout your lower levels. That's what a startup in Columbus, Ohio has done, and another one in Texas, and one in Indiana. I would love to see them happen in Vermont as well.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: All right, that's good to hear.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You suggested that if we went to the local supermarket, that the national brands anyway would likely have the QR code on the label because they're just producing one type of package that they use everywhere. If we expand, as you suggested, to include formula, So we'll be starting there. The formula companies would be starting from scratch, more or less. In terms of the testing and finding the facilities to do the testing, Anything we should be aware of there that we might hear if And we might We've actually asked, and I'll ask you again, or I'll ask again and ask you whether there's somebody we should be reaching out to who represents the baby food companies who ought to have an opportunity. We would be happy to give them that opportunity. And if we extend that to formula producers, something that we're gonna hear from them that you can give us a preview on?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Yeah. So Gerber has been is the big baby food brand. Beech Nut has had some problems. They were singled out in the House report. We highlight them because they were not making it publicly available, but you will see many smaller brands. We can send you some of them that have taken this on and made it an issue. So we can try to highlight some for those. I would suggest going to Gerber in particular, because they have a lot of farms in Michigan. That's where they tap to on a lot of them. I know they should do it in Vermont, but they're based in Michigan. And so they can tell you about their efforts to work with farms and to source more carefully. So Gerber would might be my first choice because of their size, because of their systematic efforts, and they can tell you about production. But I can get you contacts with the Ohio company and other ones that are all trying to do better. I think

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right, go ahead.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Oh, was gonna say two of the primary arguments that you are likely to hear from industry, we, Tom and I have heard this in meetings with them, is one that an effort like this where we're trying to include infant formula may have the effect of stigmatizing the use of infant formula versus breastfeeding. That is certainly not the case here. We're just simply wanting to provide information for consumers to act on. And I would just emphasize again that our test results show that it is absolutely possible to make a safer infant formula product for parents and caregivers to use. The second point that you are likely to hear is that the FDA is going to be acting on this issue so that this bill, a bill like this, isn't necessary. And just again, would emphasize that the FDA has a long way to go before they're able to do anything meaningful on this issue.

[Rep. Cooper (Member)]: Representative Cooper. Remind me that from your slides earlier, Tom, does California have infant formula in their field?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: California exempts infant formula. We're talking with them now about trying to remove that exemption based on the results from Florida and consumer reports.

[Rep. Cooper (Member)]: Would we be the only state that has infant formula in the

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Maryland has a bill that's under consideration right now to remove the infant formula exemption. They're the only ones with a public bill, a public bill to remove it. The industry is strongly opposed to it. And I can share with you the industry letter that they sent, Infant Formula Association's letter that they sent to representative to Veras in Maryland. So you can see what their arguments are and invite them in.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That would be helpful, thank you.

[Rep. Cooper (Member)]: I'm just curious to know, you know, with the population of a half million, a little over half

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a million

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: here in Vermont, what that would look like logistically on their end, having a QR code just potentially for, would they have to include that QR code and make that industry change for such a small population. I would love to see it happen. I just interested in what the Don't underestimate

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: the value of leadership even from states with smaller populations. The industry pays attention. They see what's coming. They're just trying to fight it. So the first one that breaks the dam, the other states will follow suit, whether it's Maryland, Vermont, or California. California has more clout, but, you know, Vermont usually punches above its weight.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Called the break of the state.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: I'm from Indiana after all, remember? So we've seen how things work.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can you either of you give us just a very quick primer on what the ingredients are in infant formula? The critical key ingredients here that would include risk factors?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: You want to go, Brian, or

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Just based on our test results and talking to our scientists, it was like vitamin mixes that were a culprit in some of our testing. And I can circle back with them and give you more detailed information on that.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Sometimes it's iron as often. Iron and zinc have lead as a contaminant if you're not careful. You can find iron and zinc with very low lead, but it was showing up. That's where we were seeing it in prenatal vitamins. Another source on prenatal vitamins that industry identified was calcium. Instead of taking calcium from the ground, they were grinding up animal bones. And if you grind up an animal bone that's eaten a lot of lead over the years, it could have some lead in it. So some of this is just sourcing better, but those are the primary ones I'd be worried about. And then soy, some of the grains occasionally have it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That good. I was wondering about that. Yeah. So soy is an ingredient?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: For soy based, formulas, yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Soy based.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: The soy has levels of cadmium and lead in it. Not huge, but enough that it could start to show up in the infant formula.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, I was just trying to buy baby carrots on Amazon. And I just wondered, how does the QR code work there? I don't see a QR code here. So if I'm a parent, then I can imagine it's not an insubstantial market, online baby food. How is that gonna work?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Were you looking for baby carrots?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Gerber's It says baby food. Yeah. Carrot puree. Okay.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Sometimes when you have to look down, you'll see the images of the product, the front, back, and sides, and you'll start to see it show up.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Okay. So it it there is a way to take to to do QR codes online too. Right?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Sometimes they dummy those up, so it's a little hard to do. I've not had success with my camera on a screen trying to do that. That's why it's important just to provide the URL. Like, we that's what the bill what the amendments would say is for toxic element testing and give them the URL or or a link.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Got it. And conceivably, since it's not a requirement here in Vermont, they're using your They know that too. Right? Yeah. Alright. I don't see any other hands. Anything else either of you wants to add?

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: Let me know. I can come up to Vermont anytime. I love Vermont. My son got married in Vermont down by Randolph.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Twist our arms.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Where he

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: went from Boston to get married.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, you're you're always welcome to visit Vermont, and and we'd be happy to have you in person in the committee. I I think we're in pretty good shape. We would appreciate any information you want to send, and I will just say that I think we're on a timeline where we would need to be wrapping up the testimony in the next, certainly in the next week. So we'll look forward to getting anything you'd like to send us.

[Tom Neltner (National Director, Unleaded Kids)]: We'll try and get you some of that information on UPC codes on some of the products.

[Unidentified Representative (addressed as “Representative Basil”)]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Brian Ronholm (Director of Food Policy, Consumer Reports)]: Thank you so much.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Have a good afternoon. Right. We do have the health department who we had invited testified on our agenda for tomorrow afternoon. And actually tomorrow morning, the agency's director of the laboratory, who I think we met when we were in Randolph, I think that we'll have some brief testimony from her just to better understand what the testing looks like. I'm not sure that

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I wonder if we should have the Vermont Grocers Association come in on this one.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Let's invite the Vermont Retail Grocers Association. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to hear from their perspective, they're forward against it and

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Good.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Could we get, like, somebody from Gerber and then also from space based

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: company?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. I'd be happy to have I don't know the brand names for a while, but Gerber sounds familiar.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Gerber and beach shop. Yeah. The model for the Gerber baby is a Was you? Now a Newport City cop up off. Oh, really? Oh, well, even at 20 years old, they looked like the girl. Right.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: The arrest of the guy. Still over there? There was a baby formula company just on

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: the other side of the lake.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: There was again What? Windham?

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Yeah. My father-in-law actually worked for them. But that's and there was one with did Georgia have one too?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yes, there was one in Georgia too for while.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good, well, we'll see. We may suddenly get a lot more interest in testifying now that we're hearing specific. And now that we're talking about formula too, that might be, guess, people's attention. All right, I think we can stop there, we're on the floor at 03:30. We'll be back here tomorrow, Friday,