The House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee is holding a hearing on Wednesday at 11 AM to question Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, Robert Califf, other FDA policymakers, and industry executives about the shortage of infant formula being faced by the nation that has parents struggling to find food for their babies.
The hearing is entitled, “Formula Safety and Supply: Protecting the Health of America’s Babies.”
The committee will question the following participants:
Robert M. Califf, M.D., Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration
Frank Yiannas, Deputy Commissioner, Food Policy and Response, Food and Drug Administration
Susan Mayne, Ph.D., Director, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration
Christopher J. Calamari, President, US and Canada Nutrition; and Senior Vice President, Abbott
Scott Fitz, Vice President, Technical & Production, Gerber Products Company
Robert Cleveland, Senior Vice President, Nutrition, North America and Europe, Reckitt
Lawmakers are scrutinizing the FDA regarding their response after a whistleblower warned the FDA last fall about food safety violations at Abbott Nutrition’s baby formula plant in Sturgis, Michigan. Although warned three months earlier, the FDA didn’t start inspections at the Michigan plant until the end of January. They found five strains of a dangerous bacteria at the facility.
Four infants who drank Abbott’s infant formula were hospitalized. Two of them died. The FDA says they cannot prove that the bacteria found on inspection at the Abbott family led to the infants’ deaths, as none of the bacterial strains found at the Sturgis plant matched clinical samples from the sick infants.
The Abbott company, however shut down the facility and did a voluntary recall of many of their products in February. That’s what contributed to supermarket stores being empty of infant formula all over the country.
Watch the hearing live at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85sPtIetu-4