Some babies are allergic to both milk and/or soy and need special formula (amino acid goo and not much else). Some mothers don’t make enough milk.
When a factory responsible for 40% of domestic supply is shut down, and all their inventory recalled. What else could you expect to happen?
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Cow’s milk (and soy milk) is not recommended for babies until 12 months old. Four out of five of babies born in the US begin life breastfeeding, . But by 6 months, 75 percent of babies receive at least some formula. https://www.nytimes.com/article/baby-formula.html
So from the time that mothers stop breastfeeding (some never start for various reasons), or begin supplementing, to 12 months, there is no alternative to formula.
Think of every mom with a child under 1. Now assume that at some point during that child’s first year of life, 75% of those moms are buying formula. Some for only a few months, some only to supplement, but a lot are buying it for over 6 months as their baby’s only form of nutrition, week after week, and they are scrambling right now (and have been for a couple months) to figure out how they are going to feed their children.
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I’m going along with meed18, very well put summary of the story of up to 12 months baby formula needs.
Hopefully as meed18 proposed we see 4/5 mother’s still breastfeeding. But another option for mother’s scouting for the baby formula is “goats milk”. It’s been many years since I was in such a position of needing a substitute after breastfeeding. One of my babies would only tolerate precious goats milk at that time.
Another option for those in need…
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My understanding from both, my wife (who works with pediatric nutritionists) and Monday’s The Indicator, the shortage only exists for the one manufacturer that has monopolized SNAP acceptance and controls 40% of the market, and had their factories closed after poisoning a few babies. There’s no shortage from other manufacturers.
Also complain to your congresscritters for allowing FDA to ban imports of European formula that is much better than anything available in the USA. I spent days researching and testing on our little one. The few US made formulas we tried had a terrible stench, stained everything, and didn’t digest all that well. Not the case for a couple huge European brands I tried (it was still possible to get them back then). Higher quality ingredients, no smell, no stain, and easier digested. EU certified organic, which is more strict than USDA Organic.
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Send her to the border to come in as a refugee. Apparently, there are pallets full of formula for future democrat voters. 
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Turkey inflation running around 100%
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This is an oversimplification, with a little bit of unproven allegations thrown in, plus a misunderstanding of who the executive agencies report to.
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Guys I follow natural gas prices because I’m selling natural gas, for which I’m paid every month. NYMEX natural gas right now is at $9.23!! That is a mind blowing number for someone, like myself, accustomed to natural gas prices in the two to three dollar range. Thank goodness we are nearly through “shoulder season”, heading into summer. Because I don’t know how some people are going to be able to keep their homes warm when the cold weather returns. You see:
Natural gas, during summer, continues to be produced. It is stored so it will be available the following winter for home heating. In the past when natural gas was very high, earlier this century, some people converted to oil heat. That course of action, it appears to me, is no longer available as a money saver since oil has also skyrocketed.
I just don’t know what people, and lower income people in particular, are going to do. This is not a good situation at all.
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They’ll just expand HEAP and call the problem solved… Has the government ever seen a problem that an expensive band aid cant fix hide?
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Maybe the can just ban oil exports and make everything worse while claiming to be “doing something”.
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From the CBO…
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such as?
Califf said the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s investigation couldn’t conclude that the insanitary conditions at the plant caused the illness. However, he said the health agencies cannot rule it out either, calling the confluence of events “highly unusual.” None of the Cronobacter strains at the Sturgis plant matched two clinical samples from the ill infants, according to the FDA.
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We’re from the government and we can’t be bothered.
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Where’s the whistleblower report from the guy that told the FDA bigwigs, but was ignored, that if they force the closure of this plant without allowing importation of foreign formula first, there won’t be enough baby formula produced here to meet the needs of the millions of American children that use it for nourishment every day?
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So all this is saying is that we should’ve started seeing these shortages around Christmas, rather than this spring. “Lost mail delays inevitable.”
Can someone please explain how invoking the Defense Production Act helps at all? The shortage is due to a lack of manufacturing capacity, not a lack of materials. More raw ingredients cant help if there’s no where to turn them into formula.
To be fair, I dont think I want such decisions (closing health hazards, especially involving infants) to be delayed until it’s more convenient. If it needed to be closed, it needed to be closed as soon as that conclusion was reached.
At that time, the pending shortage should’ve been blatantly obvious, and efforts undertaken immediately to mitigate. But that also could’ve been happening - it’s not like European manufacturers can suddenly divert significant quantities of their supply to the US without creating new shortages in Europe.
Which is to say, I’m not sure how much blame can be passed around on this one, besides the manufacturer for not maintaining safety standards in their factory in the first place.
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It’s Something to be Done! Now, let’s forget about that and ban some guns.
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If this had happened in 2019, I would have a little more deference in assuming the FDA came to that necessary conclusion correctly than I do today. I think they FDA gets more right than they do wrong, but if the last 2 years have taught us anything, it’s that the government’s public health experts are people just like you and me, and are not immune to the natural desire to put their own interests first above those they are employed to protect. To be clear, I’m not referring to corruption here. Just general career protection self interest.
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It doesnt matter if the conclusion was correct or not. I’m just talking about them [be it rightly or incorrectly] deciding it must be closed, then delaying that closing [and product recall] for two months while an alternative supply was secured.
I’m open to the possibility that it wasnt neccessary to begin with, but once they decided it was they needed to act immediately.
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