U.S. baby formula shortage to persist into June

WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials on Thursday said that a baby formula shortage would continue at least into next month, leaving desperate parents continuing to search for ways to feed their infants even as President Joe Biden and his aides defended their efforts to help restock empty shelves.

Dr. Robert Califf, head of the Food and Drug Administration, told angry lawmakers on Capitol Hill that some efforts — including relaxed guidelines for imports and ramped-up domestic manufacturing — could increase supplies within days. But he said availability of baby formula in stores would not return to normal for weeks.

At the same time, administration officials struggled to explain how Biden’s decision to invoke a Cold War-era statute will help alleviate the shortage of baby formula that has exasperated families across the nation and led to heartbreaking reports of infants sent to the hospital for lack of food.

On Wednesday, Biden authorized use of the Defense Production Act in an effort to ensure formula manufacturers had access to the ingredients and materials they needed to ramp up production. Shortages developed after Abbott Laboratories, which controls 48 percent of the baby formula market, voluntarily recalled some of its most popular products in February and shuttered a plant in Sturgis, Mich., over concerns about possible contamination.

But a senior administration official, who spoke to reporters Thursday on the condition of anonymity, declined to say whether any formula companies reported having trouble getting ingredients or materials in a timely manner.

In response to numerous questions about the potential impact of the president’s decision, the official repeatedly said the administration was “having active and ongoing conversations with the companies” but declined to say what the companies had requested or even whether the firms had identified problems that required government assistance.

The official did not provide information about how much faster the administration believed formula would reach consumers with the invocation of the Defense Production Act.

And the official declined to answer when asked why Biden did not authorize the use of the law weeks ago, when the shortages became much more pronounced.

In a statement, Abbott Laboratories said the act “can be an effective tool to prioritize raw materials and ensure supply of specialized components.”

“We’re already express airfreighting infant formula from our FDA-registered facility in Ireland and welcome any support that these added measures can provide in cutting red tape, increasing volume of imports and speeding up transport time from overseas to the U.S.,” the company said.

The FDA and the White House have raced in recent days to respond to the public outcry over bare grocery store shelves and concerns that desperate parents were rationing their stock or resorting to possibly risky homemade mixtures to feed their infants.