President Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to address the ongoing shortage of baby formula throughout the U.S., the White House announced on Wednesday evening.
Biden is requiring suppliers of materials used in the production of baby formula to send shipments to formula manufacturers first, before other customers, the White House said in a press release.
The president also is launching what the White House called “Operation Fly Formula.” The initiative calls for the Department of Health and Human Services and Agriculture Department to use commercial planes operated by the Defense Department to import baby formula from other nations.
“I’ve directed my team to do everything possible to ensure there’s enough safe baby formula and that it’s quickly reaching families that need it most,” Biden said in a video message posted on Twitter.
I’m taking two new steps to increase baby formula supply:
– Invoking the Defense Production Act to increase domestic production
– Launching Operation Fly Formula to use federal planes to fly formula in from abroadWe're making sure safe formula gets to all who need it. pic.twitter.com/lnkxsaCY6T
— President Biden Archived (@POTUS46Archive) May 18, 2022
The move comes amid a shortage in baby formula that was reported in the Wall Street Journal in January but has since been exacerbated, with many stores out of stock across the U.S.
The news also comes after Abbott Nutrition and the Food and Drug Administration announced an agreement to reopen an Abbott baby-formula processing plant in Sturgis, Mich. The plant was closed in February, and Abbott recalled products, after several reports of bacterial infections in infants who consumed products from the facility. (Abbott maintained that “there is no conclusive evidence to link Abbott’s formulas to these infant illnesses.”)
According to the agreement, however, Abbott can only reopen the plant upon approval from the FDA, after which it will take six to eight weeks for formula produced at the plant to reach store shelves.