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Biden Officials Admit Baby Formula Supply Issues Still Ongoing

Biden Officials Admit Baby Formula Supply Issues Still Ongoing

As shortages continue and after another recall, Abbott planning construction of another infant formula plant.

Back in early July, I reported that despite the Biden administration’s reverse “Berlin Airlift” baby formula drop, experts indicated it would be a couple of months before stock rates improve.

Well, months have certainly passed. As the midterm election looms large on the horizon, I thought it might be a good idea to check the status of the formula supply.

And, as I thought, the answer is not comforting.

Biden administration officials are still grappling with baby formula supply challenges across the country, eight months after a key formula plant shuttered and sparked widespread shortages.

Stores remain unevenly stocked as the amount of formula on the market overall has rebounded. The officials in charge of the response blame hoarding, supply chain bottlenecks and manufacturers making fewer varieties.

“I know that there’s obviously still a problem,” said Stacy Dean, who oversees the Agriculture Department’s federal nutrition program for low-income moms and babies that pays for more than half of the formula consumed in the U.S.

The lingering crisis is an extra headwind for Democrats ahead of the midterms, as it hits low-income families already struggling with record inflation and higher food prices. And it’s providing Republicans with ammunition to attack the Biden administration ahead of the midterms.

Perhaps if the votes go red, there may be solutions to the Food and Drug Administration formula log-jam.

Lawmakers like Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have been calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to address why the agency has not acted swiftly enough in response to the shortages. They have introduced bills that would accept additional formula manufactures to market.

Part of the proposed legislation would allow more imports of formula.

Abbot, whose Michigan plant was shut down beginning the supply chain collapse on formula, had another recall of formula in October.

In a new recall following a separate one which dogged them for the better part of this year, Abbott, which has been the largest infant formula manufacturer in the U.S., is now voluntarily recalling bottles of their largest, most popular kind of formula, Similac, from their manufacturing facility in Columbus, Ohio.

…The new recall in Ohio is because the bottle caps on some of their 2-ounce ready-to-feed liquid products made at the Columbus plant are faulty, and may not have sealed completely, the company said in a recall notice.

The company is now planning to build a $500 million infant formula facility.

“We’re currently in the final stages of determining the site location and will work with regulators and other experts to ensure this facility is state-of-the-art and sets a new standard for infant formula production,” Robert Ford, the company’s chairman and CEO told investors in an earnings call on Wednesday.

The decision to invest in a new plant comes in response to an analysis that found “this country would benefit from more manufacturing capacity and redundancy,” Ford said.

The country would also benefit from less regulatory inanity and political foolishness.

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Comments

There are several solutions:

1. Make a whole lot more of the stuff
2. Keep illegal babies on the other side of the border
3. ________________________________________________

    henrybowman in reply to Peabody. | November 5, 2022 at 4:07 pm

    Ah. That’s why they’re so hot about abortion.

      Peabody in reply to henrybowman. | November 5, 2022 at 4:09 pm

      3. More abortions.

      CommoChief in reply to henrybowman. | November 5, 2022 at 4:57 pm

      The heirs of Margaret Sanger still want to pull ‘weeds’ in the garden. They wouldn’t want too many of the ‘wrong, damaged or defective’ people in the USA so to them eugenics makes sense.

      The democrat party and the progressives have both consistently been in favor of racist policies to divide by tribe in order to support and advance their political power. Now they are fully allied and joined at the hip.

    gonzotx in reply to Peabody. | November 5, 2022 at 4:54 pm

    Real men breast fed their children!

BierceAmbrose | November 5, 2022 at 4:48 pm

The Ministry of Production is doing great.

— Complex systems are hard. Hot takes that reactives can parse aren’t enough. What Dark Brandon can actually say is worse.

— You don’t have as much, or as accurate information as you think.

— Even if you knew as much as you think, it’s not enough to make it work.

— When it works, there’s a whole lot of ad hoc adaptation making it go.

— Supply systems treat bans and mandates as interference, and route around them — when they can.

Producing stuff vs. distributing it is harder, still. Don’t even think about inventing new stuff you can produce.

So, we have a great energy shortage of emergency, terrible, crushing whatever. Fossil fuels are the easy case, compared to pretty much everything else: more fungible, more substitutable, transportable, storable, consumption can be varied, more supply and production than we absolutely require, known and established distribution.

And you could see it coming. Who didn’t get that once Ukraine and Russia went hot, “disruptions” would be coming in general, to supply into the energy system in particular? Who didn’t get that OPEC, and our dear Saudi n Iranian friends would be not much help in managing their production output for our convenience — they’ve been whacking us with that stick for 50 years.

No, the Prezzy’s not is not to “run the country.” It sure looks like we shouldn’t let those clowns anywhere

Shockingly, inflation is a thing, financial markets are chaotic and now the Fed is about crushing this and that, because — because The Ministry of Finance can’t stand having The Ministry of Production screwing things up more than they.

Conservative Beaner | November 5, 2022 at 5:50 pm

Booty Boy will get right on it.

This is impossible. If there were a baby formula shortage, the media would have daily stories on it.

So once again an attempt to move the economy to a more socialist economy creates higher prices and shortages of vital goods. Who would have thunk it?

Nobody ever accused the pedophile of being able to one f*cking thing right.

The FDA accepted the bribes and allowed an oligopoly of 4 companies to control the entire US market. Under the pretense that making baby formula was something complex. It is not. The basic nutritional components were worked out in the early 1930’s, nearly a century ago. Then another branch of this sprawling, useless agency decides it will stop over a quarter of all production because of a whistle blower complaint that was found to be unproven.
No wonder Americans despise the Federal government.

Ah, the “burden” h/t Obama of babies… fetal (for social distance)… fetal-babies. h/t Democrats, diversity, inequity, and exclusion. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter

Baby formula is very easy to make. You could do it in your kitchen without trying very hard. The reason that the market has few competitors is regulation which limits production to only a few companies. Those companies often produce a product that is dirty and worse than what almost any company could make.

Biden administration officials are still grappling with baby formula supply challenges

Why are administration officials involved at all with this? Managing baby formula supply isn’t their job. It wouldn’t surprise me if the new recall is as unnecessary as the first, and we all know it will be several years before the new facility can begin production. Clearing building and zoning permits, getting past environmental lawsuits that dog everything these days, and the FDA itself are all obstacles.

I have no doubt it will be a red tsunami. But, the question is, is the red tsunami bigger than the blue cheating tsunami. And that will make all the difference.