Team AOC - Baby formula crisis: Explained

 

This weekend, Alexandria hosted an Ask Me Anything session on Instagram where someone asked about the baby formula shortage. 

So, we wanted to take a moment to share via email what’s going on and how we ended up here. 

First, we want to acknowledge that this has been a scary event for families with newborns. We see you.

Before we get into how we got here, is there a solution or end in sight for the baby formula shortage? 

Yes, help is on the way. This week, the White House authorized “Operation Fly Formula,” which means that the U.S. is working with allies to begin imports of baby formula that meet U.S. safety standards to make up for the current shortage.  

The first shipment of over a million bottles just arrived from Switzerland.

The White House also invoked the Defense Production Act last week to kickstart domestic production as well. In addition, the House passed a $28 million baby formula shortage bill despite 192 Republicans voting against the bill (only 12 supported it).¹  

But, it’s important that we understand HOW we got here and how this happened to prevent it from happening again. 

So what happened here?

In short, corporate monopolies are a major reason behind the baby formula shortage. 

Did you know that the ENTIRE U.S. infant formula market is controlled by just three or four companies? 

That means that if something happens to one supplier, the entire supply is crippled. And that’s exactly what happened. This is actually a growing structural problem within huge parts of our food system overall, but it hit infant formula in a big way. 

Here’s how it went down:

One of those companies, Abbott Labs, had long been warned by the FDA about increasingly dangerous conditions in their formula factories that were endangering the safety of U.S. infant formula supply. 

However, while Abbott produced a huge portion of U.S. infant formula, infant formula was only a tiny percent of their revenue (less than 5%). So they didn’t really pay as much attention, investment, or care to their formula business. It wasn’t their moneymaker. 

Abbott let their factories get worse, FDA inspections continued to show flags, and whistleblowers came forward stating Abbott was falsifying their records and ignoring consumer reports that babies were getting sick. 

In February, Abbott recalled some of its most popular formulas after four babies became sick with bacterial infections after consuming some of their products. 

Around this time, the FDA inspections of Abbott’s formula factories got so bad that after repeated attempts and warnings, the factory had to be shut down. It was just too dangerous. 

So Abbott, which controlled 48% of the market, halted production. 

To be clear, the underlying forces causing this shortage are rampant throughout our entire food system. 

Alexandria sounded the alarm long before this crisis. 

During a congressional hearing, Alexandria warned that corporate monopolies are threatening our food supply, risking price gouging, and hurting wages. Our leaders have been warned about this for a long time. As Alexandria said, “I hate being right about these things.”

It’s shocking that just a few Big Ag and factory farm companies control major sectors of our food supply, like meat processing or soybean production. 

If you’d like to dig into this more and other topics from the last few weeks, please watch and share Alexandria’s Instagram Live.

Our movement has always been about listening to the alarm bells, learning from our past mistakes to prevent future crises, and holding corporations accountable.

We can do better, and that’s what Alexandria and our movement is fighting for. 

Thanks for being in it alongside us. 

Team AOC

1 - Washington Post