Manufacturers and distributors warn that the shortage of infant milk in the US may worsen in summer | Society

The infant milk supply crisis in the US is getting fatter as the days go by, fueling at the same time the controversy over how this situation could have come about and the concern of hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers throughout the country, forced to pilgrimage from store to store, or web, to get the main sustenance of their babies. While the FDA (acronym in English for the federal Food and Drug Agency) has assured this Friday that the shortage will be solved in a matter of weeks, one of the most important manufacturers of formula milk maintains that the deficit will last for months. Laboratories and factories point out that the shortage – the percentage of the product out of stock has reached 43% this week – can get even worse during the summer. The crisis hits hard the population with fewer resources, dependent on aid that restricts access to the product.

While the Joe Biden Administration has taken action on the matter, through a meeting of the president with heads of manufacturers and distributors this Thursday, the Executive has made the supply of infant milk to families with fewer resources a top priority, by facilitating the purchase of any milk available on the market. Many low-income families depend on government aid coupons (the maternal and child program known as WIC) to purchase food, so they have more limited access to the product, since these aid programs are contracted between States and specific producers. .

The Administration is lightening the bureaucratic procedures for this, since access to the free market —including offers on the Internet, which have multiplied their price in recent weeks— is prohibitive for the beneficiary population of the coupons. The White House has also ordered the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that watches over free competition, and the attorneys general of the different states of the country to investigate information related to the exorbitant increase in prices taking advantage of the situation.

Abbott laboratories, at the direct origin of the crisis after being forced to suspend the manufacture of infant milk in February due to suspicions of contamination, have indicated this Friday that the closed Michigan plant could start pumping containers to the shelves of pharmacies and supermarkets in two months, but for that it must first obtain FDA approval. The stoppage of activity followed four cases of poisoning of babies who had consumed the brand’s milk, two of them resulting in death, between the end of last year and the beginning of this year.

But other manufacturers are not so optimistic about the resolution of the crisis, which has dominated the headlines in the US in recent days. The CEO of Perrigo, one of the four companies that produce 90% of infant formula in the US market, pointed out this Friday that the shortage crisis could last for the rest of the year.

According to the director of the FDA, Robert Califf, the agency will announce specific plans next week to expedite the importation of the product, such as temporarily easing current tariffs, as well as new packaging alternatives for US manufacturers, such as reducing the supply of sizes. existing to a single, more functional. The FDA’s actions are aimed at filling empty shelves without forgetting safety, quality and labeling standards, Califf stressed.

The US market for baby formula, valued at 4,000 million dollars, is dominated by local producers, with a residual volume of imports – barely 10% of the total – and subject to high tariffs.

American families with breastfed babies depend almost entirely on infant formulas (among other factors, due to the early return of mothers to work after childbirth, in a country where maternity leave as such does not exist). Fewer than half of babies in the country were exclusively breastfed in their first three months of life, according to a report on breastfeeding published in 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, its acronym in English, the federal agency of health).