Long Island Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin is the latest member of New York’s Congressional delegation to demand the Biden administration invoke emergency measures to handle the growing disaster of the shortage in baby formula across the nation.
“President Biden must invoke the Defense Production Act to reverse the US shortage on baby formula,” Zeldin, who represents eastern Long Island, wrote in a tweet on Saturday.
Zeldin’s tweet came a day after Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told a radio program the infant formula shortage “is a life or death issue” and announced she further intended to ask Biden to invoke the 1950 law that authorizes the president to order companies to produce goods or products in a national emergency.
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New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who is a chair to the House Oversight Committee, is demanding more information regarding the shortage from four major producers of baby formula across the nation, as the FDA declared plans to allow baby formula imports last week.
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The calls came amid the increasing shortage with Abbott Nutrition, the largest producer of formula in the nation, repeating assurances it could begin producing formula soon after the Food and Drug Administration signs off on the hygiene of their plant in Sturgis, Michigan.
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“Subject to FDA approval, we could restart our Sturgis, Mich., site within two weeks,” a spokeswoman for Abbott explained to The Post Saturday. “From the time we restart the site, it will take six to eight weeks before the product is available on shelves.”
The shortage is so widespread that even one black market vendor at an East Village flea market who usually hawks Enfamil baby formula for $10 a canister announced he hasn’t had any formula to sell “in a while.”
“They sell quickly,” said the vendor, who refused to give his name. “Gone in no time.”
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The lack of formula was further fueling interest at breast milk banks across the nation, which collect excess breast milk to give to mothers of premature infants.
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Yet critics explained that Abbott is passing the buck to the FDA for its own failings and that both are to blame for the current situation.
“Abbott has to be a bit scared from a civil liability point of view, but there is no reason that Abbott couldn’t start producing products very fast with sufficient warnings to consumers,” stated Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer based in Seattle.
Those warnings would include telling customers to boil water and sterilize bottles and nipples before using a powdered formula to prevent the cronobacter bacteria, which can cause deaths in infants, Marler explained to The Post. Two babies have died amid the recent cronobacter outbreak.
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