Florida Turns Up The Heat On Unsafe Foods
A new initiative led by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis tests baby formula, candy, and bread for harmful chemicals, shining a light on a highly resistant industry problem.
There may be no job as thankless and unappreciated as that of the wife of a politician.
But Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has become the rare political wife to break the mold by spearheading a Florida food safety campaign that is having a national impact.
In January, she announced the results of independent heavy metal testing of infant formula products by the Florida Department of Health as part of a new Healthy Florida First initiative with Governor DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo.
The testing revealed that 16 out of 24 infant formula products tested contained at least one heavy metal in excess of the maximum daily limit compared to health-based screening benchmarks set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The testing screened for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury.
Since then, the Florida initiative has released the results of additional testing for toxins in bread and candy and published the results at its web page, exposingfoodtoxins.com.
Casey DeSantis said parents and consumers “should have confidence that products sold in grocery stores are safe and free from poison.”
She expressed hope that more states will serve as a “force multiplier” to support U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which has targeted ultra-processed food and removed certain food dyes from grocery products.
Consumer Reports
Casey DeSantis is not the first to notice that popular baby formulas are tainted with toxins.
Consumer Reports magazine tested baby foods in 2018 and followed up in 2023. CR reported that “the overall risk hasn’t changed much” in five years. CR’s latest study said that half of 41 powdered infant formulas analyzed still contain at least one contaminant.
