United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday pins blame on delayed alert regarding the situation that he claims has led to a worsening crisis.
The Democrat said he was not immediately notified that the United States was facing a looming shortage of baby formula until April. However, executives of baby formula manufacturers said that they voiced their concerns to retailers two months earlier.
Baby Formula Shortage
In a statement, the senior vice president at Reckitt, Robert Cleveland, said that they knew from the very beginning that the situation would result in a very serious event. The president's remarks came at a virtual White House meeting between Biden and executives of five baby formula companies.
They discussed the Biden administration's efforts to ramp up formula production to address the shortage across the nation. It was the safety-related closure of Abbott Nutrition's formula-making plant in Sturgis, Michigan on Feb. 17 that triggered the sudden crisis. The company is known to supply 46.2% of the U.S. supply of baby formula and about one-quarter was historically produced at the Michigan plant, as per USA Today.
Cleveland told Biden that from the moment that the recall was announced, they immediately reached out to retail partners like Target and Walmart to warn them about what could happen. After the 50-minute meeting, Biden said that anyone could have anticipated the impact of the shutdown of the Abbott facility.
Read Also: FDA, Abbott Nutrition Agree To Restart Infant Formula Production To Address Nationwide Shortage
The Democrat's remarks came shortly after manufacturers said that they had already anticipated a shortage of baby formula. The president said, "They did, but I didn't," adding that he was not made aware of the issue until early April. He noted that his administration did everything in its power from that point on.
According to Bloomberg, Biden and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have drawn criticism from lawmakers from both parties for the government's slow response to the baby formula shortage crisis. On the other hand, the Democratic leader said that his administration would have been able to respond more quickly if they had "better mind readers."
Being Aware of the Crisis
The chief executive of Perrigo Co. PLC, Murray Kessler, told the president that when his firm learned about Abbott's recalls, executives "could foresee that this was going to create a tremendous shortage."
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing that she did not know whether or not the formula manufacturers had contacted the administration about their concerns before April.
She said that she did not have the timeline on that particular claim and said that as a whole-of-government approach, the Biden administration was working on the issue since the recall announcement.
Jean-Pierre referred back to President Biden's own statement about when he learned about the crisis but said that she was not saying when the president knew or did not know. The press secretary added that she could not say who had alerted Biden himself to the magnitude of the shortage in April without first having "a conversation" with the Democratic president.
National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said that it took too long for Abbott to agree to a consent decree and noted that once it was clear that the facility was not going to be able to come back online sooner, it would result in a more significant challenge for the United States, CNN reported.
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