Last October, a conscientious whistleblower at Abbott Nutrition wrote a letter directly to the interim chief of the FDA, acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock, and others. He claimed there were serious problems at the company’s Sturgis, Mich. plant.
But the current head of the agency, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, will testify before a congressional committee today that the top levels of the agency weren’t aware of the whistleblower’s report because of “mailroom issues.”
Dozens of infants are currently being hospitalized because the specialty formula they depend on to survive is out of stock.
And the FDA had “mailroom issues.”
Up until now, however, FDA officials declined to comment on why it took months between the first report of a bacterial infection linked to the plant last September, their inspection this winter, which turned up a range of food safety problems, and the recall. But the new details aren’t likely to tamp down the criticism of the agency, rather, they are already fueling further outrage from lawmakers.
“The FDA, at every step of this process, dropped the ball,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told POLITICO in an interview about the new details revealed in the testimony. “It put infants at risk.”
It actually gets worse. Despite getting the first reports of probable contamination in January, the Sturgis plant wasn’t shut down until mid-February. Even before then, there were internal discussions at the FDA about potential supply disruptions. This was critical because the Abbott plant supplies half the infant formula in the United States for the WIC program — the government food program for infants being raised mostly by single mothers.
Related: Wait, What? HALF of Infants in the U.S. Are on WIC?!
The FDA timeline laid out in the prepared testimony acknowledges the FDA didn’t hold interagency discussions about potential supply chain disruptions until Feb. 14, three days before the Abbott Nutrition plant at the center of the current shortages shut down and issued a formula recall. And the agency didn’t notify the Agriculture Department, which oversees a critical federal nutrition program that purchases about half of the nation’s infant formula, about potential disruptions until a week before the Abbott plant shut down. The program, known as WIC, serves 1.2 million infants from low-income families. Abbott supplies nearly half of all infant formula provided through WIC state contracts.
Why did it take the FDA until the end of January to begin its inspection of Abbott’s Sturgis plant, despite receiving warnings last fall? The FDA blames the staff at Sturgis for delaying their inspection because of COVID-19 staffing issues.
And despite parents screaming for more formula for the first two weeks in May (when the issue finally became news), it wasn’t until May 16 that the government reached an agreement with Abbott to reopen its Sturgis plant.
The White House is playing dumb and trying to deflect media attention toward the FDA.
The White House has also ducked questions about its own timeline in responding to the recall and ensuing shortages. Asked by POLITICO about when the FDA told the White House of the issues at the Sturgis plant and any concerns about potential shortages, a senior administration official said they would not comment on “internal communications.” “The recall became public on February 17 and we certainly have been very public about our activity in this space since then,” the official added.
What should have been a small, temporary supply disruption has become a national crisis because of the incompetence of the Biden administration and the general stupidity of big government. The media has already advanced the narrative that this isn’t Biden’s fault, that it was shortages caused by the pandemic, and that the company is at fault for running an unsanitary plant.
But the very regulations and procedures set up by the government to deal with a crisis like this failed in spectacular fashion. And that’s on Biden.
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