This past Wednesday, an announcement came down from the White House that it is having to import roughly 16 million 8-ounce bottles worth of baby formula up from Mexico in order to try and deal with the extreme shortage in America’s formula supplies.
The published statement stated that this was the Tenth Operation Fly Formula Mission over the past few weeks.
“Today, President Biden is announcing that his Administration is sourcing trucking, facilitated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), for Operation Fly Formula to transport Gerber infant formula from Mexico to Fort Worth, Texas starting on June 24,” read the released statement.
“This delivery will include approximately 1 million pounds of Gerber Good Start Gentle infant formula, the equivalent of approximately 16 million 8-ounce bottles. The product will be available through retail channels,” it went on.
The White House claimed that by the 26th of June the flights are set to cover 32 trips. This flight operation started its deliveries of formula coming from Europe back near the end of May.
“Folks, I’m excited to tell you that the first flight from Operation Fly Formula is loaded up with more than 70,000 pounds of infant formula and about to land in Indiana,” stated a tweet from Old Uncle Joe as of May 22nd. “Our team is working around the clock to get safe formula to everyone who needs it.”
To go along with the deliveries from Operation fly formula, Biden called upon the Defense Production Act to make sure that domestic manufacturers were going to get the ingredients needed to create more formulas.
“HHS being authorized to use the DPA means infant formula manufacturers can go to the front of the line and get raw materials from their suppliers—like labels or oils—that will allow manufactures to speed up production of formula,” as stated by the act.
This shortage of formula was stated to be the end result of the closure of an Abbott plant located in Sturgis, Michigan. The location was recently allowed to open back up but was once again shut back down due to extreme flooding in the area.
“Severe thunderstorms and heavy rains came through southwestern Michigan on Monday evening, resulting in high winds, hail, power outages and flood damage throughout the area,” stated Abbott in a release.
“These torrential storms produced significant rainfall in a short period of time — overwhelming the city’s stormwater system … and resulting in flooding in parts of the city, including areas of our plant,” it continued.
Despite the claims from the Biden admin that the shortage is being addressed, the admin’s efforts have been heavily ridiculed by many who have stated that this shouldn’t be a crisis and there were many months of advance notice to stop it from happening.
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