U.S. Military Airlifts Baby Formula From Europe
By: Christine Hauser (The New York Times)
Now Biden has taken us back to 1948 and the Berlin Airlift. Why is the military involved? C'mon, Joe, it's the 21st century.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A shipment of infant formula intended to fill a nationwide shortage arrived in the United States from Europe on Sunday, and a second flight was expected to bring additional supplies in the coming days, the Biden administration said.
The shipment, equivalent to about 500,000 eight-ounce bottles, contained a hypoallergenic formula for children with cow's milk protein allergy, the White House said in a statement. It provides enough formula to take care of 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for a week, Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said in televised remarks at the airport in Indianapolis, where the shipment arrived on a military plane from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
"This shipment of formula serves a critical medical purpose and will help infants with specific dietary needs requiring specialized formula," Mr. Vilsack said on Twitter.
A second shipment, which is expected to arrive this week, would bring the supply of formula up to the equivalent of 1.5 million eight-ounce bottles of three formulas, which would later be distributed from a Nestle facility in Pennsylvania.
It was not immediately clear how soon consumers would see adequate supplies of formula on supermarket shelves.
Nestle, which produces two of the formula brands that were part of the shipment, said that because they are designed for children with allergies, they would be available through hospitals and home health care companies, with small quantities potentially available online.
Asked during an interview with NBC News when shelves would be full again, Mr. Vilsack said, "I think that's a matter of weeks."
The transports are part of a series of measures taken by the Biden administration to address the shortage of infant and toddler formula that had threatened to become a political and public health disaster, as frustrated families searched depleted supermarket shelves.
President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act last week to increase production and authorized the use of Defense Department planes for "Operation Fly Formula" to respond to the crisis.
In February, Abbott Nutrition, which controls 48 percent of the formula market in the United States, voluntarily recalled some of its most popular brands — Similac, Alimentum and EleCare — after four babies were hospitalized with bacterial infections. At least two babies died, although the company said this month that there was no evidence its formula caused any known infant illnesses.
Abbott also shut down its plant in Sturgis, Mich., and the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to use the recalled brands that were produced there.
The effects of the closure of the Sturgis plant have been widespread, with stores limiting purchases of formula and parents desperately seeking supplies or trying to make formula at home, which pediatricians discourage. The shortage has also been exacerbated by supply-chain woes and labor shortages associated with the pandemic.
The statement from the White House said the pallets of formula that arrived on Sunday were "prioritized because they serve a critical medical purpose" and were in short supply because of the plant closure in Sturgis.
In another step to address the acute shortages, the F.D.A. announced last week that it would relax some of its regulations to encourage new suppliers to provide formula. The United States normally produces about 98 percent of the formula it consumes, with imports coming primarily from Mexico, Ireland and the Netherlands.
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So far Biden has taken us back to the 1975 fall of Saigon, the 1962 Cuba missile crisis, the 1950s Korean War, and now the 1948 Berlin airlift. At this rate we'll be at war with Spain before Biden is shown the exit.
We will be needing UNICEF.
That's too sad to be funny.
The United States has historically been the biggest supporter of UNICEF (which is a good thing). Now the United States is providing a lot more money for guns than for food.
Yep, I didn't mean it to be funny.
Thank you Biden. The United States is now a 3rd World Country.
I bet all the liberals are proud of this.
I heard the FDA is refusing some of it. Possibly even destroying it. Not sure why but that’s what I heard on a new blurb.