About 300,000 New York families will lose an average $90 in federal food assistance each month under a farm bill Congress sent to the White House on Tuesday. The SNAP reductions will have a long-term negative health impact, according to Deborah Frank, founder of Children’s HealthWatch and a professor of pediatric medicine at the Boston University of School of Medicine.
“This benefit is becoming progressively more inadequate for a healthy diet,” Frank said. “From a health perspective, it’s like someone is bleeding slowly and you rush up and slash the wound to open it further rather than heal the wound.”