Four corporations control 90% of the baby formula market in the United States, and as a national baby formula shortage drags on, it has impacted working-class families of color the most. We get an update from Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California, who just wrote an open letter urging leaders of federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration to take bolder action to address the shortage. Khanna discusses efforts to increase production domestically and supplement the shortage with formula from other nations, and why he is calling for President Biden to go further and pass antitrust laws to reduce reliance on corporate monopolies for vital products. “Why is it that we are so dependent on one or two manufacturers in this country?” says Khanna. “This is a problem not just in baby formula.”
The crisis started last October after a whistleblower sent the Food and Drug Administration a report detailing safety and sanitation violations at the Abbott Nutrition factory in Sturgis, Michigan, the largest baby formula manufacturing plant in the country. Actually, the whistleblower had notified authorities long before last October, but it would be months before the FDA took action. Abbott fired the whistleblower. Four babies who had consumed formula from the plant suffered bacterial infections. Two of them died. The FDA could not conclusively link the illnesses or deaths to that particular Sturgis plant. In February, Abbott shut down the plant and announced a voluntary recall of its Sturgis-
— source democracynow.org | Jul 25, 2022