Last week, the head of the Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. Robert Califf blamed a “distribution problem” for empty store shelves across the US, despite his agency shutting down the nation’s largest baby formula factory for months.
Now, House lawmakers are not satisfied with FDA’s chief alibi, he was harshly criticized on Wednesday for delays in investigating the nation’s largest baby formula plant that amplified an already growing shortage of the vital food supply for young families.
Califf admitted Wednesday that the FDA has been “too slow” in responding to the baby formula shortage, “Some decisions in retrospect could have been more optimal.”
Califf also could not give a clear answer when asked when conditions would be back to normal.
‘This is a crisis, we’re fully aware of it – families should not be searching for formula, but they have to do it now until we fill in,’ he said.
‘Several weeks out, we’ll have a surplus of formula. When I say “several,” I can’t say exactly how many weeks.’
The Biden administration has been deflecting blame for the shortage by emphasizing the role Abbott’s product recall and voluntary shutdown earlier this year played in the depleted supply – pointing out the inherent flaws in a supply chain so fragile that it could be severely disrupted by one manufacturer’s issues.
The Gateway Pundit shares some details of the recalled products:
The shortage, which began during the height of the pandemic, became worse following a February recall from Abbott Labs of Alimentum, Similac, and EleCare formulas. The recall was due to infants who used the products and contracted a Cronobacter sakazakii infection. Two infants died as a result.
The shortage caused a small number of kids to face malnourishment; it emptied store shelves and drove desperate parents from store to store and across state lines in search of formula.
In a statement, Abbott addressed the events which led to the FDA shutdown of its Michigan production plant. The company said, “After a thorough review of all available data, there is no evidence to link our formulas to these infant illnesses.”
The company noted that “Genetic sequencing on the two available samples from ill infants did not match strains of Cronobacter in our plant.”
Since the recall, average out-of-stock levels jumped as much as 9%, surging to about 40% throughout April, with some states seeing a shortage as high as 54% out-of-stock numbers.
Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia said: ‘The big question I have today is, why did the Biden administration let the shortage become so dire before acting with any urgency?’
He blasted the Democrat administration for being caught ‘flat-footed’ in ‘what should have been a foreseeable event.’
The lawmaker demanded:
‘Why did it take an onslaught of national media attention for the Biden administration to act with a sense of urgency that is required to adequately address an infant formula shortage?’
Sources: TheGatewayPundit, NBCnews, Abbott