EDESIA NUTRITION SAVES MALNOURISHED CHILDREN

On 2025-04-29, Representative Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2) delivered a floor speech titled "EDESIA NUTRITION SAVES MALNOURISHED CHILDREN" in the House.

EDESIA NUTRITION SAVES MALNOURISHED CHILDREN

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 71 (Tuesday, April 29, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 71 (Tuesday, April 29, 2025)] [House] [Pages H1688-H1689] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] EDESIA NUTRITION SAVES MALNOURISHED CHILDREN (Mr. Magaziner of Rhode Island was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.). Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about a matter of life or death for millions of children around the world. Malnutrition is the leading cause of death for children under 5 globally. When children starve, their bodies break down their own muscles, bones, and organs to survive. Their immune systems collapse, leaving them defenseless to disease. Mr. Speaker, if you go into a clinic where children are suffering from malnutrition, you won't hear them crying because they don't have the strength. The silence is all you will hear. When it comes to nutrition, the first 1,000 days of a child's life are critical for development for the rest of their lives, but there is a miracle treatment that can save the lives of malnourished children, even in the most remote corners of the world. Ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF, is a nutrient-packed peanut butter paste. RUTF, also known as Plumpy'Nut, delivers the fat, sugar, and protein that children with malnutrition need to survive and grow. It requires no refrigeration, and kids show improvement and are saved within weeks. Edesia Nutrition, based in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, is one of the two organizations in the United States that manufactures Plumpy'Nut. From their factory in North Kingstown, they produced over 88 million pounds of Plumpy'Nut each year. This work saved more than 25 million lives across 65 countries, including 5 million lives last year. Edesia and another organization, MANA, based in Georgia, have been doing lifesaving work, but this work has been largely halted because the Trump administration has frozen new orders for RUTF, grinding production nearly to a halt. This is despite Secretary Rubio and Elon Musk promising publicly that emergency food aid would be continued. That has not been the case so far, and relief for starving children is now uncertain. USAID's Office of Food for Peace has funded the manufacture and distribution of this food relief to the developing world for decades, but with the closure of USAID, and despite the assurances of Secretary Rubio and other administration officials, no new orders have been submitted for the next fiscal year. As a result, Edesia, the factory in my district, has had to lay off staff, leaving production of Plumpy'Nut slowed nearly to a halt. Shipments meant for starving children have been stranded in warehouses. There are boxes of this stuff sitting in warehouses right now with no place to go. Every hour of missed production means 415 starving children will not get the food they need to survive. {time} 1015 If we allow Edesia and MANA's mission to fail, it will be a moral failure on our part. I urge the administration and my colleagues to do the right thing. Restore the funding for emergency food aid. Keep America's promise to the world's most vulnerable children. We do not have another day to waste. This is a moment of urgency. That is why starting today, I will take to the floor of the House every single day to call to anybody in this city who will listen, asking to please restore Federal funding for emergency food aid. We do not have the ability to filibuster in the House like they do in the Senate, but I do have the right and the ability to stand in this Chamber every day for at least a couple of minutes to call attention to this urgent issue, and that is exactly what I intend to do until this funding is restored. [[Page H1689]] ____________________