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The ineptitude of our government, and its agencies, seem to have no limit. It has sent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to deceased social security recipients and deceased federal retirees every year, for many, many, years. We are told the government is working expeditiously to fix this problem. Hundreds of billions of our tax dollars were wasted on COVID relief and unemployment benefits that went to people who didn’t qualify for them, and scammers. We watched as our government botched our exit from Afghanistan causing the death of 13 Marines, and leaving countless American citizens behind enemy lines. All of the above mentioned failures admittedly involved complex, multifaceted, issues. But no governmental body could be so hapless as to allow a crisis in something as simple as feeding our babies. Right?

Let me introduce you to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To be fair, the FDA is no more inept than any of the myriad of other government agencies the American people are forced to fund. It just so happens the FDA is the feckless agency du jour. It is largely thanks to the inefficiencies of the FDA that parents all over the U.S. are stressing over how they are going to feed their newborn infants. The richest, most technologically advanced, country in the world is forced to go begging for baby food. How can this happen? Americans are fleeced for ever larger amounts of their paychecks to pay for agencies that oversee departments inside of administrations designed to ensure nothing like this happens. I’d expect the current administration to recommend a few committees to investigate the agencies who oversee the departments . . . . . As always, this entire crisis could have been avoided.

A little history is in order. In 2019 the FDA found Cronobacter bacteria, a potentially deadly pathogen, in finished baby formulas during an investigation of Abbott Nutrition (AN). There are no reports of any actions taken by the FDA after this investigation. It appears there were no follow up investigations of AN until Sept. of 2021. On Sept. 19, of 2021 the FDA found an infraction of safety protocol at the AN baby formula manufacturing plant in Sturgis, MI. Two days later the plant was cited for employees not washing their hands properly, and a building that was not up to cleanliness or sanitation standards. One would think that 3 issues in 3 days would bring AN under special scrutiny. Nope. On Oct. 21, a whistleblower at the plant sent a 34 page letter warning the FDA of misdeeds at the plant. The letter told of baby formula being released before it was tested. The letter said the company was hiding information from the FDA and operating under lax cleaning practices. Understanding that AN produces 40%+ of all of the baby formula in the U.S., these incidents should have set off alarm bells throughout the FDA. Following the history of governmental slothfulness it is unclear if the FDA bothered to interview the whistleblower until at least December, perhaps January. On Feb. 1 of this year, the FDA found samples of the same dangerous bacteria it found in 2019 at the same AN facility. On 2/14, AN announced a voluntary recall of a few batches of its baby formula. On 2/17, the FDA announced an investigation into the death of 1 infant and the illness of 4 others to determine if there was any connection with AN baby formula. Then on 2/28 the FDA announced the death of a second infant. At that time AN increased its recall, effectively suspending its production. Finally, on April 15th, AN announced that it was in negotiations with the FDA for restarting production in Sturgis. So soon?

Hooray for the FDA! One could argue that problems first arose during the 2019 FDA inspection. One could ask, why didn’t further inspections take place until 2021? Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and just look at details since 9/21. Our government, as represented by the FDA, should understand the urgent need for an ongoing supply of baby formula. What did the FDA think would happen if 40% of the production of baby food was eliminated? What was their plan B? Sadly, millions of parents are finding out right now there was no plan B. It is now 8 months since the FDA found violations at the AN factory. As mentioned above, it was just last month that AN announced it was working with the FDA to restart production at its Sturgis, MI. plant. AN reported a preliminary plan to start manufacturing formula again on or about 6/5. They say it will take about 4-6 weeks before the critical baby food begins to be readily available on store shelves. That puts us at around the first of July, or about 9 months since the first problem arose. Does leadership matter? For the sake of perspective, it took about 8 months for the Trump administration, under Operation Warp Speed, to develop, produce, distribute, and begin vaccinating Americans after the COVID pandemic was declared. You’d better believe leadership matters.

The FDA has produced a typically long list of excuses as to why it took them so long to act. The whistleblower report was mailed to acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, and others, on 10/21. The FDA said it was not received by upper management until mid-February. Egad! It said they were having problems in the mailroom because of COVID absences. Copies of the report were found in the mailroom just this month. Perhaps the problems in the mailroom were exacerbated by the fact that so many federal workers are still working from home. (Federal employees working from home is a topic I will cover in the next couple of weeks). The FDA says, “since the first day (it) has worked tirelessly with U.S. government partners to mitigate the supply chain disruptions for both regular and specialty formulas”. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that makes you feel better, or worse. The FDA has said it doesn’t currently have an answer as to why it has taken so long to get the AN factory back on line. But we should all take comfort that the agency has promised to fully investigate its terrible performance, after the issue is resolved. I hope the moms and dads who are frantically scrambling all over to find food to nourish their children are assuaged by this news. This is but the latest in a long list of self inflicted crises created under the Biden administration. It is a dead giveaway that something has gone terribly wrong in our country when it is easier to buy Fentanyl than it is to buy Similac. Producing baby formula isn’t rocket science!

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope you found it interesting and/or thought provoking. If you did please tell your friends about it. Bob