[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       CELEBRATING WIC'S 20 YEARS

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate the 20th 
anniversary of the Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants, and 
Children. WIC, as it is better known, has been one of the most cost-
effective preventive health programs ever established and I am pleased 
to have this opportunity to draw the attention of my colleagues to this 
important program.
  WIC provides low-income pregnant women, mothers and children up to 
age 5 with supplementary food, nutrition education, and medical 
referrals. Based on an infant formula and food program established in 
Baltimore during the late 1960's, WIC has had great success in 
improving pregnancy outcomes, reducing low birth-weight births, and 
saving medical costs. A General Accounting Office report concludes that 
the $300 million in WIC benefits provided for pregnant women in 1990 
will prevent more than $1 billion in health-related costs over the next 
18 years. Another report, a U.S. Department of Agriculture compilation, 
finds that prenatal participation in WIC saves Medicaid costs ranging 
from $277 to $598 per participant.
  WIC is without question an effective program and one that should be 
completely utilized. Maximizing its potential to serve all eligible 
mothers and children would avert costly expenditures and poor health. 
Evidence of this is clear as cost savings and health benefits have 
increased over the past dozen years while funding for WIC has more than 
tripled to include a larger number of participants. Despite this 
success, however, WIC still lacks sufficient funds to reach all of 
those eligible. In fact, the fiscal year 1993 program is expected to 
have served only 67 percent of all of those qualified. Progress must 
continue to be made to establish WIC as a mandatory program.
  For 20 years, WIC has been a shining illustration of what constitutes 
sound public policy and this week, in Baltimore and Washington, events 
have been held to celebrate the success of this nutritional program. 
Today, I am pleased to join in saluting WIC and especially proud that 
Baltimore is the birthplace of a program that has helped so many 
children at the most critical times of their lives.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from the May 
4, 1994, Baltimore Sun that recognizes the 20th birthday of the WIC 
Program be printed in the Record in full, immediately following my 
remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    WIC at 20: A Formula for Success

                           (By Laura Lippman)

       Social service programs seldom prompt celebrations, but 
     one, WIC, is so beloved that its 20th birthday will be 
     celebrated twice this week--today in Baltimore and tomorrow 
     in Washington.
       ``WIC is such a specific, nutritional prescription for what 
     a pregnant mother and a kid in early childhood need--to get 
     that start, to get ready to learn--and that's a lot to 
     celebrate,'' said Linda Eisenberg, executive director of the 
     Maryland Food Committee. ``It is a rare thing to hear 
     anything negative about this program.''
       WIC--the Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants 
     and Children--is a federal program that gives poor women and 
     children vouchers for infant formula and foods such as milk, 
     cheese and eggs. Its roots are deep in Baltimore, which 
     developed a forerunner.
       A General Accounting Office study estimated that WIC saves 
     $3 in potential medical costs for every $1 spent, and WIC is 
     not among the many programs up for grabs in the push for 
     national welfare reform. Although the program has some 
     critics, it has withstood them over the years--even 
     prevailing in court over President Richard M. Nixon, who 
     impounded its funds.
       Simplicity seems to be the key. Practically fraud-proof, 
     WIC appeals to those who want to police what people buy with 
     food stamps or worry about a culture of dependency within the 
     welfare system.
       Recipients love it, too, so much that some, including Shari 
     Harris of Highlandtown, end up working for WIC. She is a 
     nutritionist's aide who spreads the word about WIC.
       ``We were all anemic, and it really helped me out,'' said 
     Mrs. Harris, who credits WIC with making the difference 
     between her first child, a girl who weighed less than 6 
     pounds at birth, and her second, a boy who weighed in at a 
     healthy 8 pounds, 4 ounces.
       To qualify for WIC, a woman must be pregnant or nursing and 
     be considered ``at risk'' nutritionally. Children are 
     eligible up to age 5. An income eligibility test is used, but 
     one generous enough so that working poor families can 
     quality.
       ``One of the things about the WIC program is that we have a 
     specific mission, and that mission is to have healthy 
     children,'' said Joan Salim, the Maryland WIC director. ``We 
     feel we have saved children's lives.''
       The state estimates that it reaches about 70 percent of 
     those eligible, serving 81,000 women and children at 101 
     sites. The program grew rapidly in the early 1990s, 
     increasing its enrollment 84 percent from 1989 through 1993.
       In Maryland, no longer considered a WIC growth state, the 
     program received about $40 million from the federal 
     government and $750,000 from the state. Rebates on infant 
     formula provide $15.2 million more to spend on vouchers.
       WIC traces its lineage to Baltimore and Memphis, which set 
     up similar programs in the late 1960s. In Baltimore, it was 
     called IFIF--Iron Fortified Infant Formula--and involved 
     handing out vouchers for formula only.
       In the late 1960s, the nation was coming to grips with its 
     hunger problem, yet prenatal care was dominated by ideas that 
     seem quaint now: Pregnant women were scolded from gaining 
     more than 22 pounds, and there was little concern about 
     smoking and drinking during pregnancy. Infant anemia was 
     rampant.
       ``We were really on the cutting edge,'' said Mr. David M. 
     Paige, who, as a student at the Johns Hopkins School of 
     Public Health, helped to develop Maryland's program with the 
     founders of what became the Maryland Food Committee.
       When Congress turned its attention to nutrition problems, 
     the Maryland team was called to Washington to testify. WIC 
     expanded the voucher program used in the state.
       Since it began in 1974, WIC has seldom been threatened 
     politically. It has broad support--from the medical 
     community, recipients, farmers and formula manufacturers.
       But the program has detractors. Dr. George E. Graham of 
     Hopkins, writing three years ago in the Wall Street Journal, 
     criticized its high-fat commodities and said there was no 
     proof that it worked. Behavior--drinking, smoking and drug 
     abuse--was the problem, he wrote, not nutrition.
       Dr. Paige shares similar concerns about the program's 
     reliance on high-fat and high-cholesterol foods. But he said 
     studies show that a WIC mother is less likely to have a low-
     birth-weight baby, which reduces the chance of infant death.
       Today, however, there will no be contrary voices raised as 
     Dr. Paige and others celebrate WIC's Baltimore beginnings at 
     the WIC office in the Mount Zion Baptist Church, 2000 E. 
     Belvedere Ave.
       WIC foods are expected to be served--along with cake.

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