Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez was pregnant with her second daughter last year when she first learned about the dangers of toxic elements in baby formula.
Before the San Fernando Valley lawmaker joined the Legislature, California had already passed laws that require monitoring of heavy metals in both prenatal vitamins and baby food. But, Rodriguez wondered, what about baby formula?
“To me, there was an obvious gap,” she said.
Further research showed Rodriguez that, since 2022, California Attorney General Rob Bonta had settled two lawsuits with major companies over lead in formula — one in 2022 with Perrigo Co. over levels of lead that exceeded the Proposition 65 warning threshold, and one in 2024 with Mead Johnson over missing lead exposure warnings on their products.
So, Rodriguez authored a state bill that would require formula companies to provide information on heavy metals in any infant formula sold in California. If passed, Assembly Bill 2302 would require manufacturers to post the levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury in each formula batch online. In stores, this information would be retrieved by scanning a QR code.
California and other states enacted similar laws in 2023 requiring heavy metal testing and disclosure for baby food, but, at that time, formula was not included.
“We trust parents to make the best decisions for their children,” said Carley Clemons, senior policy associate at the nonprofit Children Now, which is sponsoring the bill. “Especially if information is presented to them accessibly.”
Bipartisan movement
The effort to monitor toxic chemicals in baby formula is part of a larger movement that has bipartisan support nationwide, from Democratic officials in California and Maryland to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. In January, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to publish a study that would examine contaminants such as cadmium, mercury and lead in formula.
“We’re going to be regulating baby formula companies so they’re giving you something that is as close to mother’s milk as we can get,” Kennedy said. Though the FDA recently began testing infant formula for chemical contaminants, the agency has not yet set action levels for them.
While states around the country have proposed similar legislation, California is poised to be a leader on the issue. Rodriguez, who gave birth to her second daughter in February, said she’s in a “unique position” to bring the bill forward. She was the first state Assembly member to give birth in six years, she said, and she’s returning from maternity leave just in time to see her bill to the finish line.
Ab 2302, which recently passed the Assembly, will be voted on by the Senate by the end of the summer.
Moms Agenda
The formula bill is part of a larger, coordinated effort her team calls the “Moms Agenda,” a set of bills focused on maternal and infant health, financial stability and essential services access. “When you’re a parent, you’re naturally worried about your child at all times,” she said.
But a national industry formula industry group called the Infant Nutrition Council of America (INCA) has been attending state-level hearings around the country to oppose such bills, including California’s. INCA’s members include Abbot Nutrition, which produces Similac; Perrigo Nutrition, which produces store brand formulas for chains such as Costco, Target and Walmart; and Reckitt, which produces Enfamil via its subsidiary, Mead Johnson. Together, these three manufacturers make up more than 80% of the United States formula market.
In a letter opposing one of the bills, INCA’s government affairs director, Craig Felner, wrote that the proposed action “might unjustifiably erode confidence in U.S. infant formula products.”
Concern over alarming parents
Formula companies already are testing their products for heavy metals and other toxic elements, INCA representatives confirmed.
“I can unequivocally tell you that our members test under the international European Union standards,” Felner said at a California Assembly Health Committee hearing on March 24. Heavy metals and arsenic appear in “trace amounts,” he clarified, and infant formula is already heavily regulated.
Their concern is how these labels may be “potentially alarming for parents,” INCA representative Missy Johnson said.
The decision to feed babies formula “usually doesn’t come lightly,” Felner explained. “If a mom or a dad is in a store, and they’re trying to figure out parts per billion, parts per million, and they don’t quite know what it means – maybe they just found out for the first time that heavy metals is (sic) actually in infant formula.” They’re also in breast milk, he pointed out.
“They might find out for the first time there at that store, and it might make them really anxious,” he said. “We don’t want them to put down the can and Google homemade recipes or go grab some almond milk.” INCA wants to make these decisions easier on parents, Felner said.
‘A huge point of stress’
Not having information on toxic element levels actually made choosing between formulas more difficult, said Leah Dennis, a Los Angeles mother who had her first child in December.
After her daughter was born, she said she had to rely on formula much sooner than she expected because of issues with her breastmilk supply. Dennis, a 35-year-old music editor, said she started doing research on the best formula brands just days after her daughter was born. Before then, she didn’t even realize heavy metals could be in formula.
In the end, she only had one day to choose the best formula option for her baby. “It was a huge point of stress,” she said. “It would have been very much helpful to have more transparency.”
Rodriguez pointed out that California laws monitoring toxic elements in baby food haven’t negatively affected parents. “The law is being implemented right now, and there’s no mass confusion,” she said. “Parents aren’t panicking, they’re informed.”
Because companies are already testing, “this bill doesn’t change a single thing for them,” Rodriguez said. “Keeping parents in the dark is not consumer protection.”
Waiting on California
This isn’t the first time INCA has opposed releasing this data — the council fought a similar bill in Maryland that would have included infant formula and infant cereal in the definition of “baby food,” which is already tested for toxic elements.
Ultimately, the bill failed after INCA lobbyists argued that although its products already are tested, the disclosure could alarm parents.
INCA’s members “don’t want to be held accountable,” said Maryland Delegate Deni Taveras, who sponsored the bill. “If you are as heavily regulated as you say you are, and you’re doing all the right things, as you say you are, then we shouldn’t have a problem.”
INCA also opposed a similar bill in Vermont. “They know that once one state does it, the other states are going to do it,” said Tom Neltner, director of the nonprofit Unleaded Kids.
Vermont’s bill, which recently passed, hinges on California’s decision — it stipulates that formula would be included in the definition of baby food only when “either California or two other states have enacted legislation with requirements substantially comparable.”
“Vermont’s not going to move the market,” Neltner said.
Other states are interested in proposing their own bills, but are looking to follow California’s lead, Taveras said. She’s been working with Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin to craft their own bills. New York also has passed a bill that would require infant formula testing and disclosure. It’s waiting on the governor’s signature.
If California’s bill is killed like Maryland’s was, it could have a chilling effect on other states, she said.
“California has a history of pushing the boundaries forward on protecting our kids and families,” said Kelly Hardy, senior managing director of health and research with the nonprofit Children Now. “Hopefully, there’ll be positive reverberations throughout the country.”
Parents who use formula deserve to know the products are safe, Rodriguez said. By the time they’re 3 months old, more than 73% of Orange and San Bernardino county babies receive at least some formula, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. The same is true for 74.4% of Los Angeles County and 67.9% of Riverside County babies.
Breastfeeding isn’t always an option, especially for working mothers, Rodriguez said. That’s an issue she’s dealt with firsthand. “I have to go to floor session and feed my baby somehow simultaneously,” she said. “I’m still struggling to make it work.”
Lagging formula regulations
Heavy metals and other toxic elements are, unfortunately, omnipresent, appearing in everything from seafood and vegetables to rice and baby food — and even breast milk.
They’re also in baby formula. Last year, Consumer Reports tested 41 formulas for contaminants such as lead and arsenic, and about half contained potentially harmful levels of at least one. This year, Consumer Reports tested 49 more formulas and found concerning levels of contaminants in 26 of them.
Consumer Reports’ 2025 report found that Abbott Nutrition, Mead Johnson Nutrition, and Perrigo Co. each had products in both the best and worst categories. That means “all of the large manufacturers are actually already creating formula with no or low levels, just not all of their products,” Clemons said.
The prevalence of these toxins is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, ADHD, learning disability, intellectual impairment, and behavioral disorders, according to Project TENDR, an alliance of scientists and advocates working to protect kids from toxic chemicals. In California, the cost of educating disabled students is nearly triple the cost of educating students without disabilities.
In 2021, the FDA launched its Closer to Zero program to regulate heavy metals in baby food — but not formula. On its website, the FDA acknowledges, “We have prioritized foods commonly eaten by babies and young children because their smaller body sizes and metabolism make them more vulnerable to the harmful effects of these contaminants.”
That Closer to Zero does not include baby formula is a “loophole,” Hardy said.
A day after Consumer Reports shared its test results with the FDA in 2025, the agency announced Operation Stork Speed, an initiative to “expand options for safe, reliable, and nutritious infant formula for American families.” Recent testing established that contaminant levels in formula were low, but “even small exposures matter for newborns,” said Kennedy, the HHS director, in the FDA’s press release.
It’s unclear “what level of priority that is for the federal government right now,” Clemons said, and California babies can’t afford to wait.