US parents panic over baby formula shortage

Mass product recall aggravating pandemic supply chain woes

It’s a nightmare for parents. The United States is in the grip of a severe shortage of baby formula — with a mass product recall aggravating pandemic supply chain woes — sending families on sometimes desperate hunts for the vital supplies.

And it has been going on for months, according to Sara Khan, the mother of three children aged 10, seven and six months.

“I’ve known about this issue for almost seven months,” she told AFP. “This did not happen overnight.”

Khan described the struggle to find just a few bottles of formula, and the distress at being faced with empty shelves at pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens or supermarket Target.

She has gotten by thanks to family and friends, who send her bottles of formula from Boston, New York and Baltimore when they find them.

“It’s horrible, terrifying,” she said, adding that she even ordered formula from Germany.

The situation took a major turn for the worse on February 17 when, after the death of two infants, manufacturer Abbott announced a “voluntary recall” for formula made at its factory in Michigan — including Similac.

A subsequent investigation cleared the formula, but production has yet to resume, exacerbating already ongoing scarcity caused by supply chain problems and labour shortages.

According to the data collection agency Datasembly, 43 per cent of the usual formula supply was out of stock, up 10 per cent from the April average.

Few alternatives

San Diego, California resident Olivia Espinosa said: “There’s nothing on the shelves.” She and her husband Steve Hohman have two young children. One of them, Maya, is only three weeks old and is lactose intolerant.

“We have to go just with a plant-based formula because we can’t try anything else,” said Hohman.

Normally, hospitals and paediatricians give parents formula samples to figure out which one works best for their child. But few have any left to give.