Photo: STEFANI REYNOLDS / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 12 May 2022, 19: 26 pm EDT
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden spoke this Thursday with some of the main national manufacturers of powdered baby milk ,
who he pressured to increase their production, and announced that it will import larger amounts of baby formula in the face of the unprecedented shortage registered in the United States.
The president spoke with the executive directors of the Mead Johnson and Gerber companies, which produce infant formula, and with the Walmart and Target retail chains, the White House reported.
In recent weeks, finding powdered milk for babies has been a challenge for parents in different states of the country, an issue that has become a throwing weapon between Republicans and Democrats and that has led the federal government to react.
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The shortage has been caused by global supply problems caused by the pandemic and difficulties in the production plant that Abbott, the main manufacturer of infant formula in the US, has in Sturgis (Michigan) .
A high-ranking official from the Biden administration explained in a call with journalists that the president discussed with the managers of Mead Johnson and Gerber “the continued efforts to increase production.”
“Your work has increased due to the loss of production by Abbott -added the official-. The president spoke with them about the ways in which the Administration can help”.
Broadly speaking, said another official of the US Executive, of these companies assured the White House that “they will do whatever is necessary” to maintain high levels of production in order to guarantee that they respond to the needs of the market.
In his conversations with representatives from Walmart and Target, Biden focused on the problems some of their stores face, especially in rural areas, as well as geographic disparities, in filling your shelves with infant formula.
In line with these efforts, Biden announced this Thursday a series of measures that his Administration is going to adopt to respond to the shortage of powdered milk for babies.
One of them will be to increase imports, given that the US currently produces 98% of the formula it consumes .
In a statement, the White House highlighted that Mexico, Chile, Ireland and the Netherlands “are key sources of imports” and announced that Soon the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will make an announcement about the increase in purchases of this item abroad.
The government has also committed to removing bureaucratic hurdles to speed up the process so that baby milk reaches supermarkets as soon as possible.
Furthermore, it is going to ask the Commission Federal Trade Commission (FTC, in English) and the attorneys general of states that combat unfair market practices and abusive price increases.
According to the Datasembly website, a site or quoted by the US media documenting fluctuating product prices and stocks, the supply of powdered baby milk was stable in the US in the first half of 1200.
As of January 2022, the shortage of this product reached a rate of 23% and has continued to worsen with levels reaching 31% last month.
Infant formula stock issues are worsened in February when Abbott withdrew the formula that came out of its plant in Michigan, which was marketed under the Similac, Alimentum and EleCare brands, after four babies suffered a bacterial infection and two of them died .
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