Old North News

Some people are claiming that undocumented immigrants are receiving baby formula while North Carolina residents are finding bare shelves where the formula should be at local stores.

The Biden administration and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are being blamed for this. 

After an abrupt plant shutdown of significant baby formula producer Abbott Nutrition in February, the entire country is being troubled by a formula shortage.

"North Carolina was among 28 states to report baby formula supply at or below 50%," WFMY News 2 tweeted on May 13.

FDA officials have acknowledged the issue. 

“A serious problem across the FDA portfolio, where there are a limited number of manufacturers," FDA associate commissioner Peter Pitts told The Washington Post. "Making baby formula is a sophisticated, expensive proposition, so consolidation is going to happen. The downside is when one of those facilities goes offline.”

North Carolina parents are alarmed by the situation.

"I have to scour to find stores. We live in a pretty small town, so I'm scouring the different Food Lions, Walmarts within at least an hour radius of us,” Nashville, North Carolina, mother Colleen Calford told WRAL News.

The FDA is alleged to have failed to take action on a whistleblower report from late last year. Meanwhile, a Florida lawmaker says she has discovered proof that the Biden administration is supplying undocumented immigrants at the Southern border with baby formula, a choice she says is a part of Biden's "America last agenda." Stores across the country are coming up short when it comes to supplying consumers with infant formula.

According to Fox Business, after getting a report from a border patrol agent that the Southern border has a baby formula supply for undocumented migrants, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) undertook an investigation to find out what was happening. After her trip, she was sure that there were "multiple stock warehouses filled with baby formula."

“They are sending pallets, pallets of baby formula to the border,” Cammack told The Washington Examiner. “Meanwhile, in our own district at home, we cannot find baby formula,” she added, holding a photo of empty shelves where the formula would normally be. “It is not the children's fault at all. But what is infuriating to me is that this is another example of the 'America last agenda' that the Biden administration continues to perpetuate.”

On May 11, Cammack tweeted two comparison photos, one she got from a border patrol agent demonstrating the full stockpile of shelves at the Southern border and the other of a partially empty local grocery store shelf.

Fortune reported that the formula shortage kicked off with an incident on Feb. 17 when Abbott Nutrition voluntarily recalled its products manufactured in Sturgis, Michigan, and closed the plant following allegations that four infants fell ill from a bacterial infection and two died after consuming formula produced there.

A whistleblower report, submitted to the FDA in October 2021, said that additional health and safety compliance issues took place at the facility and triggered a formal inspection at the beginning of this year. While a number of issues have added to shortages, Observer asserts that the FDA's dragging its feet on the inspection is one of the main ones.

It wasn't until January that the FDA began an investigation into food safety practices at the facility in Michigan, three months after the initial reports. Then it was not until Feb. 17 that the FDA warned consumers about certain powdered infant formula products from the Sturgis plant, and Abbott closed the facility while beginning the recall.