The Baby Formula Shortage

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ProfX
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The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by ProfX »

Congress apparently wants to investigate. Well, let's give them a head start.

And please, can we stop with the "everybody should breastfeed" mantra? I agree there are good reasons for it, "the natural approach," but it's 2022, and it's not an option for gay male parents with infants. Plus zealots will have you arrested for daring to breastfeed your baby in a mall. Hmmkay?

America's baby formula crisis: The role of regulations and trade policy
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/05 ... ortage-fda

Another good article on the origins of the problem:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ll/629828/

Look, it seems to boil down to this. We have a real small number of domestic suppliers, there has been tremendous concentration in the industry, so when a problem hits one of the manufacturers (Abbott) (bacterial contamination) leading to a major recall - and yes it's a sad story of corporate malfeasance - there is little or no resiliency. There has also been panic buying by families due to the usual supply chain issues caused by COVID.

As some articles have noted, this also interconnects with the way the U.S. seems to zealously defend the unborn, but stops giving a shit right after they emerge from the womb. We really fail on our support systems for mothers with infants, hence our high infant mortality rates.

But there is another issue at play. We could be importing more baby formula from Canada and Europe. We SHOULD be. Some of this is at Trump's feet, as usual his trade policies & tariffs exacerbated it. There is plenty of infant formula in Europe that easily meets FDA standards and could be sold here, but due to weird regs (it's labelled differently, etc.) we can't import it.

Sometimes globalization is not the enemy.

Please, also, let's not scapegoat the fact that Mexican migrants also have infants, TX Guv. Thx? It's not the source of the problem.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
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carmenjonze
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by carmenjonze »

ProfX wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 7:30 am Congress apparently wants to investigate. Well, let's give them a head start.

And please, can we stop with the "everybody should breastfeed" mantra? I agree there are good reasons for it, "the natural approach," but it's 2022, and it's not an option for gay male parents with infants.
Also, adoptive mothers could never breastfeed. And, a lot of biological mothers cannot breastfeed for various reasons.

I really can't stand breastfeeding supremacists.
Please, also, let's not scapegoat the fact that Mexican migrants also have infants, TX Guv. Thx? It's not the source of the problem.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by marindem01 »

The Shortage began back in February, but somehow now that is Mr. Biden's fault. That Asshat Abbott thinks that Mr. Biden is deliberately witholding Forumla from White Babies to give it "Brown" babies on the border.

So what Abbott is saying he believes in so-called, "Right To Life" as long as that life is White and Christian.

I did not the Mystical/Mythical/Magical Non-Existent Skyman was racist...who knew?
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by bengal59 »

marindem01 wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 10:30 am The Shortage began back in February, but somehow now that is Mr. Biden's fault. That Asshat Abbott thinks that Mr. Biden is deliberately witholding Forumla from White Babies to give it "Brown" babies on the border.

So what Abbott is saying he believes in so-called, "Right To Life" as long as that life is White and Christian.

I did not the Mystical/Mythical/Magical Non-Existent Skyman was racist...who knew?



What the fascist right also "forgets" to mention is that Abbott used a large chunk of their profits for stock buybacks, instead of fixing their machines at the factories. You know, like the greedy RW CEO's do with the tax cuts!
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by carmenjonze »

bengal59 wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 4:58 pm What the fascist right also "forgets" to mention is that Abbott used a large chunk of their profits for stock buybacks, instead of fixing their machines at the factories. You know, like the greedy RW CEO's do with the tax cuts!
Then these people go and spend who knows how much on these school-defunding bills like CRT and Don’t Say Gay and witch-hunting/fugitive-slave-lawing trans families.

Filthy, grifting bigots.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by hottentot venus »

isn't TFG's bullshyt trade pact with Canada and Mexico why importing is soooo expensive??

dumazz....
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Stop drawing equivalence between racial identity and a job

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ProfX
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by ProfX »

Image
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
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Drak
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by Drak »

The GOP is so pro life they voted against baby formula…
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Are the same that burn crosses"

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ProfX
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by ProfX »

Beware online misinformation about formula.

Be careful about people recommending how to make it at home, or how to dilute it, etc. You should consult an actual expert, i.e. a pediatrician, before following these recommendations.

Pediatricians warn of misinformation amid baby formula shortage
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/ped ... -shortage/

Some might simply be unintentional misinformation; I suspect some is deliberate disinformation; would be nice if we had a disinformation board to help deal with it.

Also, scammers and gougers have jumped into the breech. Also beware the ripoff artists, who are of course jumping into the crisis.

Be careful of foreign formula that does not meet FDA standards. That said, there is much that does from Canada and Europe, and the U.S. should ease the process of importing it. BTW, Biden has taken that step.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
JoeMemphis

Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by JoeMemphis »

ProfX wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 7:30 am Congress apparently wants to investigate. Well, let's give them a head start.

And please, can we stop with the "everybody should breastfeed" mantra? I agree there are good reasons for it, "the natural approach," but it's 2022, and it's not an option for gay male parents with infants. Plus zealots will have you arrested for daring to breastfeed your baby in a mall. Hmmkay?

America's baby formula crisis: The role of regulations and trade policy
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/05 ... ortage-fda

Another good article on the origins of the problem:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ll/629828/

Look, it seems to boil down to this. We have a real small number of domestic suppliers, there has been tremendous concentration in the industry, so when a problem hits one of the manufacturers (Abbott) (bacterial contamination) leading to a major recall - and yes it's a sad story of corporate malfeasance - there is little or no resiliency. There has also been panic buying by families due to the usual supply chain issues caused by COVID.

As some articles have noted, this also interconnects with the way the U.S. seems to zealously defend the unborn, but stops giving a shit right after they emerge from the womb. We really fail on our support systems for mothers with infants, hence our high infant mortality rates.

But there is another issue at play. We could be importing more baby formula from Canada and Europe. We SHOULD be. Some of this is at Trump's feet, as usual his trade policies & tariffs exacerbated it. There is plenty of infant formula in Europe that easily meets FDA standards and could be sold here, but due to weird regs (it's labelled differently, etc.) we can't import it.

Sometimes globalization is not the enemy.

Please, also, let's not scapegoat the fact that Mexican migrants also have infants, TX Guv. Thx? It's not the source of the problem.
I’m not sure how big a role this plays in this particular situation but I can tell you from experience that nationwide recalls are long, tedious, highly regulated and bureaucratic processes. So in this case, unless you have some mechanism to cut thru the bureaucratic red tape, it’s difficult to move quickly. So months may sound like a long time to most people but it’s not all that surprising based on my limited experience.

We need to figure out a way to address/expidite these cases that are mission critical.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by gounion »

JoeMemphis wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 9:25 am I’m not sure how big a role this plays in this particular situation but I can tell you from experience that nationwide recalls are long, tedious, highly regulated and bureaucratic processes. So in this case, unless you have some mechanism to cut thru the bureaucratic red tape, it’s difficult to move quickly. So months may sound like a long time to most people but it’s not all that surprising based on my limited experience.

We need to figure out a way to address/expidite these cases that are mission critical.
We should be actually enforcing Teddy Roosevelt's anti-trust laws, instead of ignoring them. We let the big player consolidate industries, and we have a few companies colluding and controlling a market for THEIR benefit, not the public's.
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ProfX
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by ProfX »

It's definitely a textbook example of the problems with corporate consolidation.

When you have only four companies in America making baby formula (or at least 90% of it), and one (Abbott) has a massive recall, ... this is what can happen. Biden is taking steps - letting some more imports into the country, invoking the Defense Production Act to ramp it up - they all seem good to me, wish they would get more bipartisan cooperation.

Breastfeeding has its advantages for the infant, but it's not an option for all mothers - or all parents (after all there can be two gay male parents of an adopted infant) - and I sure wish RW zealots would stop charging breastfeeding mothers in public places with "indecency". :roll:

Again, I would be cautious of some of the online "advice" about making your own formula. Consult a pediatrician before doing it. Yes, again, I think it's a good idea to listen to experts.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
JoeMemphis

Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by JoeMemphis »

ProfX wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 10:00 am It's definitely a textbook example of the problems with corporate consolidation.

When you have only four companies in America making baby formula (or at least 90% of it), and one (Abbott) has a massive recall, ... this is what can happen. Biden is taking steps - letting some more imports into the country, invoking the Defense Production Act to ramp it up - they all seem good to me, wish they would get more bipartisan cooperation.

Breastfeeding has its advantages for the infant, but it's not an option for all mothers - or all parents (after all there can be two gay male parents of an adopted infant) - and I sure wish RW zealots would stop charging breastfeeding mothers in public places with "indecency". :roll:

Again, I would be cautious of some of the online "advice" about making your own formula. Consult a pediatrician before doing it. Yes, again, I think it's a good idea to listen to experts.
I understand your point but my question is why is it taking so long to get the Abbott plant back online. In the case I was involved in, we had the fix to the problem pretty quickly but the process of getting the “fix” thru the approval process took a long time not to mention the additional steps required to recall the product and then get the replacement back into the market and to consumers. As I said, it’s a long, tedious and bureaucratic process because you have to work thru various government agencies such as the CPSC and whatever other government institutions govern baby formula. The reporting is also a major pain in the ass and often the forms make no sense whatsoever. We had to hire an attorney to file the reports because nobody else could make heads or tails of the CPSC forms.

I understand that the process takes time in normal circumstances but there should be a way to expedite such matters when the product is mission critical.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by Libertas »

ProfX wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 8:51 am Image
So there was a 2nd bill...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/9-republican ... 28243.html

Where only 9 scumbags voted against it. No surprise who they are:
The "no" votes were cast by GOP Reps. Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie, Clay Higgins, Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The bill now goes to a vote in the Senate.

These no votes are to show loyalty to traitor and MAGA. If they have to kill us to show loyalty, they will. If that means killing babies, they will have no problem with that, at all.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by Number6 »

ProfX wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 10:00 am It's definitely a textbook example of the problems with corporate consolidation.

When you have only four companies in America making baby formula (or at least 90% of it), and one (Abbott) has a massive recall, ... this is what can happen. Biden is taking steps - letting some more imports into the country, invoking the Defense Production Act to ramp it up - they all seem good to me, wish they would get more bipartisan cooperation.

Breastfeeding has its advantages for the infant, but it's not an option for all mothers - or all parents (after all there can be two gay male parents of an adopted infant) - and I sure wish RW zealots would stop charging breastfeeding mothers in public places with "indecency". :roll:

Again, I would be cautious of some of the online "advice" about making your own formula. Consult a pediatrician before doing it. Yes, again, I think it's a good idea to listen to experts.
In the early 70s, I took a political science course and one of the things I remembered the professor talking about was just about any product made in the U.S. just three companies control most of the market for that product. Being in medical supply we'd get free infant formula from the three companies that made it. Competition was so fierce between the companies the AF had a policy of rotating free infant formula among the companies. We had to rotate the companies every six months to a year so no company monopolize their product in our hospitals. The infant formula company's rep knew when each hospital would rotate their infant formula products and when the company's turn in the rotation would come. The company rep would contact us a couple months before it was their turn to setup delivery dates.

Note, when a baby begins on one formula, pediatricians want the babies to continue on that formula until they can eat solid food. So, by supplying our hospitals with free infant formula, that meant military parents would be buying that company's product at the base commissary. IOWs, the company locked in their customers to use their produces. I have no doubt they also provide free infant formula to civilian hospitals.
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by Motor City »

Pete Buttigieg's inner neoconservative comes out

Pete Buttigieg: Hungry Babies, Regrettably, Are Just the Price of the Free Market
Someone save us from the free market ideologues before it’s too late.

Sitting down on CBS’s “Face the Nation” this week, transportation secretary and billionaire darling Pete Buttigieg addressed the infant formula shortage that’s sent parents around the United States scrambling to find some way to feed their babies. Asked about the sluggish federal response to a crisis regulators were informed about as far back as October, Buttigieg absolved the Biden administration through a little bit of neoliberal sleight of hand.

“Let’s be very clear,” he said. “This is a capitalist country. The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make formula.”

It was the company that screwed up, Buttigieg insisted, and now it was the government’s job to help get the contaminated plant that helped lead to this shortage back up and running quickly and safely.

At heart, this is just a lazy bit of political ass-covering. In reality, the Biden administration has a great deal of responsibility for what happened: federal regulators took months to respond to the October whistleblower complaint about food safety issues at the Abbott Laboratories plant in question, only for two babies to die and another to be hospitalized a couple months later. Nor did regulators act on Minnesota health officials’ September warnings about a baby hospitalized after taking formula from the same plant; in fact, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did a routine inspection of the plant that very month and concluded its issues weren’t major.

It was only in January that FDA inspectors actually went to the plant in response to the complaint, and since Abbott shuttered the plant a month later and recalled its products, making the shortage worse, the administration hasn’t exactly acted with urgency. It failed to proactively deal with the problem, with the president claiming last week that he and others would have had to be “mind readers” to have acted earlier on a crisis that was being reported on as early as January. Then, even when the problem became unignorable, the administration had to be pressured for days by Democrats and Republicans alike to use the Defense Production Act to get formula on the shelves, despite (falsely) claiming to have been the first to suggest the wartime law as a way to deal with the pandemic.

So Buttigieg is wrong. But what’s maybe most interesting is how he’s choosing to be wrong.

In a line that no doubt prompted much high-fiving and backslapping from his comms team, Buttigieg passes the back by suggesting there are simply some lines too sacred to be crossed even in a crisis — in this case, the government directly producing baby formula. It’s not just that in a capitalist system, according to Buttigieg, the government does not make baby formula; it’s that it should not.

But governments around the world — and even in the United States — are......
more at link
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ProfX
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by ProfX »

Government may not produce infant formula, but they are one of its largest purchasers. Pete IS wrong. This problem isn't a free market one.

BTW - I don't expect him to know all the details - he runs Transportation, not HHS or Ag. That's their wheelhouse.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/10997480 ... -shortages

[snip]

The federal government not only regulates formula makers. It's also their biggest customer. About half of all formula sold in the U.S. is paid for by the Department of Agriculture, through its Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

Each state signs an exclusive contract with one of the formula manufacturers to supply subsidized product for low-income families. The government gets a big price break. In exchange, the formula maker gets a large, captive market.

The USDA's own research found that whichever company gets the WIC contract in a state enjoys a powerful market advantage there, with a monopoly over WIC sales and "spillover" effects in the non-WIC market as well.

Supermarkets tend to give preferential shelf space to the formula maker with the WIC contract. And pediatricians may be more likely to recommend that brand to their patients.

"Because the WIC program is such a large purchaser — it buys about half the formula on the market — once a company has an exclusive deal to service a state, competitors don't have a financial incentive to compete in that state," Kelloway says.

Abbott — the company behind the shuttered Michigan plant — has the WIC monopoly in about two-thirds of all states. The administration has asked states to relax those rules temporarily, so WIC recipients can use their benefits to buy any brand of formula.

[snip][end]

So yes, there is a monopoly problem here, and the thing is, it's a monopoly problem the government is helping to create.

As quoted from the above article:
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf acknowledged that concentration in the formula industry deserves more scrutiny.

"The question of whether we need more diversity in terms of the overall supply is one that, I think, will be much discussed and needs to be considered in light of the levers that we have to make that happen," Califf told reporters Monday.

Sigh. Usual bureaucrat speak. The issue is yes there is a concentration of supply to one manufacturer.

Thing is, Abbott doesn't really hold a market monopoly, because they have a superior product. And I'm totally in favor of the WIC program, to be clear, without it the already crappy U.S. infant mortality rate would probably be higher. But because of the way states run it, they basically handed Abbott control over 2/3 of the market for formula. Can't put all our eggs in one basket.

We need to make sure mothers have access to formula. We can do that without giving control to 2/3 of the supply to one manufacturer.

There's also stuff in this article dealing with another subject - there is formula made in Europe and Canada that does meet FDA standards and could be sold here - as noted, Biden is taking steps to allow it, although maybe only in the short term. (This kind of reminds me of how "free market" conservatives are so dead set against the importing of Canadian drugs.)
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Re: The Baby Formula Shortage

Post by bird »

ProfX wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:57 am Government may not produce infant formula, but they are one of its largest purchasers. Pete IS wrong. This problem isn't a free market one.

BTW - I don't expect him to know all the details - he runs Transportation, not HHS or Ag. That's their wheelhouse.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/10997480 ... -shortages

[snip]

The federal government not only regulates formula makers. It's also their biggest customer. About half of all formula sold in the U.S. is paid for by the Department of Agriculture, through its Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

Each state signs an exclusive contract with one of the formula manufacturers to supply subsidized product for low-income families. The government gets a big price break. In exchange, the formula maker gets a large, captive market.

The USDA's own research found that whichever company gets the WIC contract in a state enjoys a powerful market advantage there, with a monopoly over WIC sales and "spillover" effects in the non-WIC market as well.

Supermarkets tend to give preferential shelf space to the formula maker with the WIC contract. And pediatricians may be more likely to recommend that brand to their patients.

"Because the WIC program is such a large purchaser — it buys about half the formula on the market — once a company has an exclusive deal to service a state, competitors don't have a financial incentive to compete in that state," Kelloway says.

Abbott — the company behind the shuttered Michigan plant — has the WIC monopoly in about two-thirds of all states. The administration has asked states to relax those rules temporarily, so WIC recipients can use their benefits to buy any brand of formula.

[snip][end]

So yes, there is a monopoly problem here, and the thing is, it's a monopoly problem the government is helping to create.

As quoted from the above article:
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf acknowledged that concentration in the formula industry deserves more scrutiny.

"The question of whether we need more diversity in terms of the overall supply is one that, I think, will be much discussed and needs to be considered in light of the levers that we have to make that happen," Califf told reporters Monday.

Sigh. Usual bureaucrat speak. The issue is yes there is a concentration of supply to one manufacturer.

Thing is, Abbott doesn't really hold a market monopoly, because they have a superior product. And I'm totally in favor of the WIC program, to be clear, without it the already crappy U.S. infant mortality rate would probably be higher. But because of the way states run it, they basically handed Abbott control over 2/3 of the market for formula. Can't put all our eggs in one basket.

We need to make sure mothers have access to formula. We can do that without giving control to 2/3 of the supply to one manufacturer.

There's also stuff in this article dealing with another subject - there is formula made in Europe and Canada that does meet FDA standards and could be sold here - as noted, Biden is taking steps to allow it, although maybe only in the short term. (This kind of reminds me of how "free market" conservatives are so dead set against the importing of Canadian drugs.)
Have to disagree slightly. This Is a free market problem precisely because capitalism ALWAYS trends toward consolidation. Competition is anathema to capital. Consolidation or oligopoly/monopoly occurs across the entire spectrum of manufacturing. As Smith noted merchants will collude. This is especially true when it comes to consolidation.

So we must note that the free market is a myth. Pete was both right and wrong. He fell into the trap of the free market theomythology.

On a side note related to consolidation, when the petrochemical plants in Texas went down due to the storm way back when the paint and coating manufacturers were hammered as resins were not to be had. Every major resin supplier put every customer on force majeure which simply means allocation. You would get what they said you would get, period. Resin manufacturers have consolidated. Hell, paint and coating manufacturers have consolidated.

Start enforcing anti-trust is a good idea but will it encourage competition?
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