Late last year, my colleague Mary Chastain reported that industry experts thought the baby formula shortage would continue to spring 2023.
As we approach the spring, the formula shortage crisis appears to continue.
It has been more than one year since the initial crisis pertaining to the baby formula shortage around the nation, and not much has changed. Today, the issue continues to make its impact as parents find themselves walking up and down aisles of empty shelves, looking for the formula they need to feed their infants.In February of 2022, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating the Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan following the death of nine babies who had been given powdered infant formula.Abbott initiated a recall of certain Similac, Alimentum and EleCare, three popular formulas among parents and their infants.For months after, the supply of baby formula began to drop at grocery and other retail stores. Parents had to dig through Amazon and Facebook Groups in search of baby formula. More than one year later, the shortage is still being felt.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will undergo an overhaul due to the nation’s baby formula shortage, but no one at the agency will be reassigned or fired.
[Commissioner Robert Califf] announced a “new, transformative vision” for the agency which will consolidate the regulators responsible for food safety under a new “Human Foods Program.” However, this general restructuring of FDA agency components did not come with a specific plan to address the problems identified by an internal FDA review that hindered its response to the infant formula shortage. Additionally, when asked at a press conference, the commissioner said there were no plans to fire or reassign anyone involved for the agency’s failures.Califf did acknowledge that there had been some “leadership changes” – the FDA’s top food safety official, Frank Yiannas, resigned last week. In his resignation letter, Yiannas wrote that the structure of the foods program “significantly impaired the FDA’s ability to operate as an integrated food team and protect the public.””But the short answer is no one’s going to be reassigned or fired because of the infant formula situation,” Califf told reporters, according to Politico.
Additionally, the federal government is launching a criminal investigation of the Michigan plant at the heart of the crisis.
The company that runs the plant, Abbott Laboratories, confirmed it was being investigated.”The DOJ [Department of Justice] has informed us of its investigation and we’re co-operating fully,” a spokesperson said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the investigation.The company – one of the largest producers of baby formula in the US – was forced to recall several powdered infant formulas and stop production in February after health officials found bacteria at the plant that can potentially cause deadly infections in babies.The Food and Drug Administration Agency (FDA) also said it found evidence of unsanitary conditions.The shutdown and recall worsened a nationwide formula shortage that was already a problem due to global supply chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic.
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