Legal Insurrection readers may recall that the baby formula shortage of 2022 began as the result of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) closing an Abbott Laboratories plant in Michigan.
It is reported that the FDA knew about a deadly bacteria detected at another facility in a type of baby formula months before the brand was recalled.
In November, the FDA inspected the Mead Johnson plant, where Enfamil ProSobee Simply Plant-Based Infant Formula is made, and was informed that Cronobacter bacteria had been detected at the Zeeland, Michigan facility, in September.Despite the initial contaminated batch being destroyed, another 145,000 cans were recalled after the bacteria was found in the formula. No bacteria was found in the recalled cans of formula, according to the FDA.The February recall came around five months after the discovery of Cronobacter, which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says “can be deadly for young infants.” Symptoms in babies include fever, poor feeding, excessive crying, low energy, seizures, spine swelling, and bloodstream infections.”As part of the FDA’s oversight to ensure safe and nutritious infant formula, the agency’s more recent engagements with manufacturers through inspections and ongoing meetings has limited the scope of these recalls and minimized disruptions to the market,” an FDA spokesperson told Politico regarding the recall.
Last winter, we reported “experts” predicted the baby formula shortage would be resolved by spring.
It looks like the experts were wrong…again.
One year later, the baby formula shortage continues to plague families nationwide – and relief from the Biden administration is seemingly nowhere in sight.FOX Business Lydia Hu spoke with pharmacy owner Anil Datwani, who issued a warning to parents that demand for formula is growing, while supply is dwindling.”It’s getting harder and harder,” the AR-Ex pharmacy owner said, adding that “it’s a struggle to find” Enfamil A.R., Enfamil Gentlease NeuroPro.”[Mothers] go from one store to the next store to the next store” looking for these formulas, he explained.
House Republicans has started investigating the Biden Administration FDA’s “poor response.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf requesting all the administration’s communications relating to the shortage and its response. Califf notoriously announced in January that the FDA would not fire anyone over its response to the crisis.Comer’s letter references a review of the FDA’s response by a third party, which found that the organization lacked urgency and motivation in responding to the shortage.”Despite this report, and the acknowledged need for a major overhaul, you stated that there would be no reassignments nor firings over the administration’s response to the infant formula shortage,” Comer wrote in the letter. “We request documents and communications to understand the FDA’s response to the infant formula shortage.”
One former FDA regulator warns the American supply chain remains susceptible to more crises.
Zeroing in on “multiple microcultures,” Frank Yiannas, former FDA deputy commissioner for food policy and response, told the House Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services the agency is in need of a culture change.”It is my view that the state of the infant formula industry today is not much different than it was then,” Yiannas told the committee.He told bipartisan lawmakers, the FDA needs more than simple corrective action, adding the agency’s compartmentalized structure hampered its ability to respond.Yiannas spent four years at the FDA, helping to lead the response to the baby formula shortage last year.
Professor Jacobson reviewed disturbing trends in American culture recently. Creating environments where it is difficult to find infant formula would certainly contribute to the plunging numbers for having children as a priority.
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