Biden Invokes Defense Production Act for Baby Formula
Defense Department commercial aircraft to bring formula into the United States from overseas.
How awful is the Baby Formula Crisis of 2022 for Democrats?
So bad that Biden invoked the Defense Product Act for a product that never should have been allowed to be in short supply.
Biden took steps on Wednesday to address the shortage of infant formula in the United States, invoking the Defense Production Act to help manufacturers obtain the ingredients needed to ramp up supply, the White House said.
Biden also directed U.S. agencies to use Defense Department commercial aircraft to bring formula into the United States from overseas.
Instead of focusing on military tasks and concentrating resources on tension-filled regions, the Pentagon will also have to do milk runs.
In a letter Wednesday to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, Biden directed the agencies to work with the Pentagon to identify overseas supply of formula that meets U.S. standards over the next week, so that chartered Defense Department flights can swiftly fly it to the U.S.
“Imports of baby formula will serve as a bridge to this ramped-up production,” Biden wrote.
The CEO and corporate recovery expert responsible for turning around General Motors in 2009 blamed the Biden administration’s ‘bureaucratic bungling’ for the current crisis.
Turnaround CEO and Goldman Sachs alum Harry Wilson has spent the last 30 years rescuing companies on the brink of collapse by cutting wasteful spending and reorganizing inefficient corporate structures.
In 2009, during the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, Wilson, a lifelong Republican, was brought in by the Obama administration as a senior adviser to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and led the turnaround of General Motors after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Now, as a candidate for governor of New York, Wilson is calling out both the Biden administration and corporate leaders for ‘failures’ that have exacerbated a baby formula shortage that came on the heels of a product recall at the Abbott plant in Michigan following reports of contamination and has sent parents of infants in all corners of the U.S. into a frenzy.
“Because of bureaucratic bungling, slowness and not dealing with the implications of an oversupply economy, we now have this tragic shortage that’s really hurting families across the country,” Harry Wilson told Fox News Digital.
The administration will want to tout this as an example of leadership. However, the integrity of that narrative is….questionable.
Biden administration last week: We’ve been doing everything possible to fix the baby formula problem.
Biden administration today: We are invoking the Defense Production Act to address the baby formula issue.
So they were obviously lying last week, will anyone ask about it?
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) May 18, 2022
Biden invokes Defense Production Act, ‘Operation Fly Formula’ to address shortagehttps://t.co/iHyD1cGd4K Biden administration knew about it in January that’s why you sent the baby formula to Border kids need the formula and he has it’s sitting on the boarder.
— Joe (@jmor539) May 18, 2022
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Comments
There may be a shortage of formula properly labelled in canisters, but there is absolutely no shortage of the raw materials, or the ability to put them together.
The “formula” for formula is not all that complex — it is a list of a protein source, fats, and vitamins. Every health food store has a stock of milk, egg, soy and pea protein, plus everything else a baby would need.
It would not be that hard to put all of this stuff together to make a product that satisfies a baby.
An example in point is Emergen-C during COVID. That was my go-to electrolyte drink before COVID, and I wanted to use it for its other ingredients, too. At the time, it was a nearly unique product.
But Emergen-C was not able to keep up with production, and every other health food store came up with its own formulation. There are many electrolyte mixtures in little envelopes of various sizes now, and Pedialyte has even gotten into the act, with both dry and liquid formulations.
The Biden administration is far to inside-the-box to figure any of this out.
It would not be that hard to put all of this stuff together to make a product that satisfies a baby.
But how safe would it be? Do you know the proper proportions of those items that won’t OD the infant on a particular vitamin or provide too much or not enough of any particular element?
(Electrolyte mixtures for adults are much easier than an entire nutrition package for infants.)
I’m not saying it’s not doable, but you can’t just blithely toss out “Why don’t people just make their own?” without contemplating the risks.
Let me correct that as one who actually does this. (speaking in general terms because I have never made “formula” but have made some measure of all kinds of human/pet foods and drugs. The process is virtually identical)
The product- once a “recipe” ( with any variants) is made and approved- it can be “made anywhere” the proper kettles/reactors/mixers/HVACR equipment is present. (facilities retool for this all the time and many have it ready under a SMED protocol)
So, making it “safely’ is really a non argument provided all normal protocols are in place and followed.
“Keeping up with production” is also a misnomer. Most batch lines are 24/7 to begin with so “production” (defined as what is scheduled to be made for a particular run) is the total capacity of the line (how much it can hold) x “process time” (mixing, cooking etc.) – any refills/cleaning/ maintenance/changeover/whatever= “production”.
You are either running or not- if running then you are making production because production CANNOT exceed capacity of the line. (You can run less than the theoretical 100% but never more)
These things are mixed with injectors, scales, rotary airlocks and so forth so there is little worry of improper proportions once dialed in. ( even routine industry has almost laboratory grade accuracy unless a malfunction happens)
All the above is routine 24/7/365 operation in the food/drug industry and has been for decades which is why I am so “suspicious” about this “alleged shortage”.
Something is missing here.
I was speaking to the idea of doing it at home.
As to the shortage – most of it is due to consolidation, I think. There aren’t a Bunch of companies making it in the US, now, just a few. So if a single plant goes down it has enormous impact.
Then there’s the FDA, which shut down one of those few, primary plants over a possible contamination issue. And then demanded massive changes to ensure no future contamination could occur. (Safetyism hard at work.)
And yes, a lot of the issues arise from gov’t regulations that provide massive barriers to entry, benefiting those handful of major players.
I cant see it as a problem ( making from home), its been done for centuries before anything modern..
Even gen (z-1) can use a browser.
I deal with a lot of shortages due to outages ( companies want JIT but have contingency stocks to a degree) and this doesn’t look like a typical one.
Here’s why.
Yeah lets say this is 40% or whatever- that other 60 would still be there. Also, when a facility shuts down, they almost always obtain products from overseas on short contracts ( for extended outages)- that’s just normal business in that industry. Nothing new or special.
Something is different here because this didn’t incrementally happen over weeks- it was just there.
From the 20’s through the 60’s people made their own formula with Carnation evaporated milk, Kayro Syrup and water.
The Government is Warning against making your own formula, to protect the baby formula companies from losing customers.
Exactly. People today believe that government approval for their own lives is required when it’s not. My mother made the same “formula” as back up…and I’m not dead or have a suppressed immune system, unlike these mother’s who have masked and vax’d their children for two years.
Never forget that government rakes in money by taxing every transaction. An important aspect of my being debt free fairly early in life, was that I saved massive amounts of money by doing a lot of things myself. I know virtually all the building trades. I make a gallon of bleach for about ten cents, 4 gallons of liquid laundry soap for a dollar or so a gallon, and it both outperforms commercial laundry soap and is formulated for a second life as liquid fertilizer.
I think that we are heading into tough times. Conduct yourself as if that is the case. Save money, lots of money. Learn this stuff before you are in a crisis.
Knowledge is always valuable. Your children seeing you do all these things will be much better off, both because they did it with you and because they will be likely do the same things for themselves and their children.
Maybe because people were making their own for centuries before government stepped in
The amounts are not a trade secret. They are part of Nutritional guidelines that are open access.
Defense Department commercial aircraft
Ummmm, there’s no such thing. There are aircraft contracted to DoD logistics work, including cargo and personnel. But there are NO “commercial” aircraft in the DoD. That’s an idiotic phrase.
the Pentagon will also have to do milk runs.
They’re used to that. The USAF and other branches have been used for decades for “relief” missions. Nice to see them being used for Americans for once.
identify overseas supply of formula that meets U.S. standards over the next week
Ummm, the market has already done that and those items are already being shipped to the US. But the nanny gov’t has to look like it’s doing something….
I think that must be about how the US government can commandeer commercial airliners to carry their troops in time of war or something.
Pretty sure it’s not the CAF, but instead is contracted carriers. There are several.
But it’s not really “DoD commercial aircraft”, it’s “commercial aircraft contracted to support of DoD logistics.”
Wouldn’t be here if the regime wouldn’t have closed the plant.
I hope that lots of young parents learn from this that they do not need to 10 or a hundred-fold for many food and chemical products. It is best that infants are nursed, but if you cannot do so, then make the food yourself.
While we here are preoccupied with baby formula and Ministry of Truth, and the rest of the American rolling disaster, the Fourth Reich is about to launch:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/19/eve-of-destruction-klaus-schwab-pledges-the-world-can-find-salvation-at-davos-2022/
The Fuhrer will not tolerate dissenting opinions. “The Big Reset” is HIS idea and it is settled.
Why not make direct govt purchase from Europe and task AF C5M and C17 to Europe to take delivery of European formula and distribute it via WIC to replace Abbott production? Why didn’t we do that the day the Abbott production line was shut down?
Oh wait, the FDA would need to issue an emergency use authorization to allow European blend formula which is not currently FDA approved. The imported European formula being allowed are those manufactured to US specs. Acknowledgment of an emergency might alert the public and embarrass the WH which is why they didn’t do this months ago.
We’d not have these problems if we didn’t have a command economy.
We do seem to have a command economy with some central control somewhere or other. Health care is a huge part of our national economy and our government has certainly got their fingers in it through medical schools, tuition assistance, Medicare and Medicaid.
Speaking of medical, how are you feeling today?
I’m quite a bit better. Still fighting fatigue but the way I’m doing it now is taking care of tasks that I have neglected. Changing furnace filters. Getting my downstairs remote vacuum cleaner working again. Just little things but they’re keeping me busy. The temperature swings have gone down by quite a bit. My biggest problem now is being able to sleep at night. I do so too much during the day.
Take time to smell the roses. Don’t watch tv or look at computer for one hour before bedtime. Have a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Sweet dreams.
Can Biden now be court martialed for sending baby formula to the border?
no
No, but he should be in a nursing home.
So government mismanagement created the shortage, now more government action is needed to solve it? Just get government out of the way. But that’s not how this clown administration rolls. Brings back memories of Reagan’s quip about the most terrifying words “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Exactly. The arsonist doesn’t get credit for trying to put out the fire they lit.
Sometimes they even hit him with an additional indecent exposure charge.
All he had to do was tell the FDA to let the factory reopen.
For the most part. But it takes time to start everything back up. And it takes time to make a production run. All the while there are empty shelves. But, at least if they had done that, they could have at least tried to get credit for fixing it. Instead… they did bupkas.
Not really. I do tons of turn arounds in several industries so from a black start (Industry term usually meaning all power/utilities are off and cold, all machines down, tanks empty, lines purged and so forth) it should take…….. ( varying a bit by industry)
24-48 hours to power up, fill up, pressurize, make steam, incrementally start up and run in large machines. ( a start up and ramp up)
1-2 shifts to fill, mix, cull, start reactions and whatever. (including frontings/tailings dump)
After that, you are making product. (assuming all raw materials are present)
I say that to say this- people talking about starting up as an issue have never worked a day in industry because plants go down and start back up after outages every single day with no issues and no significant affect in production ( planned outages)
The devil is in the details.
One reason we don’t get the answers is because we often don’t ask the proper question. (s)
In this case, given the allegation, initial findings and corrective actions- WHY was the plant ordered to stop production? (as reported in the media)
Normally with indirect findings ( which this is as no sample of the product tested was bad and what harmed the children was not present in the product proper)- the procedure is a conditional operation with usually an onsite inspection presence (FDA or USDA as appropriate) with an “inspect/quarantine/release” type of strategy for a period while control measures are implemented.
That’s the question I want to see addressed. WHO made that initial call ( an actual human name)and what was the basis in fact that warranted it based on common practice.
Your worship at the altar of Safetyism is inadequate, and duly noted by the Progressive Inquisition.
I really believe they want to “protect us to death”
That alarms me
A government solution, to a government-created problem: supply chain, disparate incentives, mal regulation (e.g. prove a negative).
Liberals are divergent. Progressives are monotonic. Libertarians are independent. Conservatives are moderating. The governing spectrum runs from the libertarian right to the conservative middle to the authoritarian left. The far-right is anarchist. The far-left is totalitarian. The left-right nexus is leftist.
And, of course, the expert model that deprecated the self sufficiency model of native Americans, and people of people since time immemorial.
And we shall work together as a people made up of people who are people who work together to make sure the significance of your words will endure with the passage of time as we work together to ensure it.
“Instead of focusing on military tasks and concentrating resources on tension-filled regions, the Pentagon will also have to do milk runs.”
The blog’s best line of the week, so far.
Sounds to me like the pedophile-in-chief done f*cked up again and now he’s calling on the entire food industry to bail his incompetent, retarded communist pedophile azz out again;.
Although it would be bad for the economy and horrible for the stock market, shortages of gasoline would be a delight to behold, just watching them squirm. We would need an XL pipeline just to move all the BS being spouted.
Why aren’t more women breastfeeding?
I know you can’t go back (usually) once you stop lactating.
Plus some women choose to violate the sanctity of their body (drugs, alcohol, unhealthy diet, smoking) instead of providing the best possible start for their baby (both nutritionally and by bonding), which seems unbelievably selfish.
This would be closer to a non-issue if more woman were simply using the wonderful gift their body provides. No artificial formula comes close to a substitute for breastfeeding. You can mock up enough nutrition for a baby to survive, certainly. But in 2022, shouldn’t babies be thriving, rather than simply surviving?