Amilitary transport aircraft carried the first shipment of infant milk from Europe, in order for the US to help with the significant shortage it faces.
The aircraft landed in Indianapolis yesterday, Sunday, and the White House announced that a second flight is planned.
The February 17 recall of batches of infant milk by manufacturer Abbott Laboratories and the closure of its plant in Sturgis, Michigan, during a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation caused one of the largest infant milk shortages in recent history for American families.
"This is an important step, but it is by no means the only step that needs to be taken. We will continue to work as directed by the president to identify every available opportunity to increase the supply," said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, who greeted the aircraft after it landed.
"This infant milk is for a very, very small percentage of children. About 17,000 children in the United States will basically benefit from this infant milk," he said."
President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to stock empty shelves with 1.5 million cartons of Nestle's special infant milk. The U.S. president last week invoked special Cold War legislation, the Defense Production Act, to help increase available supplies of infant milk.
The White House announced yesterday that a second flight carrying infant milk will depart from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany in the coming days. According to the White House, both Abbott and a second company, Reckitt, have been given priority clearances for raw material supplies, as required by the application of the special legislation cited above.
Nestle also announced that other shipments are expected to arrive in the coming days.
Military personnel used forklifts to unload pallets of packed cartons of infant milk from the aircraft in Indianapolis onto trucks headed to distribution centers. The White House said 35 tons of special infant milk to meet the needs for 500,000 bottles were transported on the flight.
Abbott is the largest producer of powdered infant milk in the US and closed its Michigan plant after reports of bacterial contamination in four infants. The development exacerbated the shortage situation among many infant milk manufacturers, and the problem began with issues that arose over the smooth running of the supply chain during the coronavirus pandemic.
Abbott executive Robert Ford yesterday apologised for the shortages and assured that the problem would be resolved, adding that the plant would reopen in the first week of June, but that it would take six to eight weeks for products to reach store shelves.
"We apologize to every family we have disappointed by the voluntary recall of our products, which has exacerbated the infant milk shortage situation in our country," he wrote in a comment to The Washington Post."
New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency yesterday to prevent a spike in the price of infant milk.
"This order declaring a state of emergency will assist in taking tough action against any merchant who seeks to take advantage of the crisis by raising prices on this essential commodity," Adams said in a statement."
Source: APM
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