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A military plane carrying enough specialty infant formula for more than half a million baby bottles arrived Sunday in Indianapolis, the first of several flights expected from Europe aimed at relieving a shortage that has sent parents scrambling to find enough to feed their children.
U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the use of air force planes for the effort, dubbed “Operation Fly Formula,” because no commercial flights were available.
The formula weighed 35,380 kilograms (78,000 pounds), White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden flew from South Korea to Japan.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Indianapolis to greet the arrival of the first shipment.
The flights are intended to provide “some incremental relief in the coming days” as the government works on a more lasting response to the shortage, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Sunday.
Reese told CNN’s State of the Union that Sunday’s flight brought 15 per cent of the specialty medical grade formula needed in the United States, and because of various actions by the government, people should see “more formula in stores starting as early as this week.”
Longer term, he said, the U.S. needs more formula providers “so that no individual company has this much control over supply chains.”
The Biden administration has struggled to address the nationwide shortage of formula, particularly hypoallergenic varieties. The crisis follows the closure of the country’s largest domestic manufacturing plant in Michigan in February due to safety issues.
The White House has said that 132 pallets of Nestlé Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formula were to leave Ramstein Air Base in Germany for the U.S. Another 114 pallets of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA formula were expected to arrive in the coming days. Altogether, about 1.5 million eight-ounce bottles of the three formulas, which are hypoallergenic for children with cow’s milk protein allergies, are expected to arrive this week.
U.S. President Joe Biden invoked the Defence Production Act and Congress passed emergency funding to speed production of infant formula and authorize flights to import supply from overseas.
Indianapolis was chosen because it is a Nestlé distribution hub. The formula will be offloaded into FedEx semitractor-trailers and taken to a Nestlé distribution centre about 1.5 kilometres away. There, the company will do a standard quality control check before distributing the supplies to hospitals, pharmacies and doctor’s offices, according to an administration official on site.
Nestlé said that over the past few months, it has worked “around the clock” to address the formula shortage and help meet demand.
“We have significantly increased the amount of our formulas available to consumers by ramping up production and accelerating general product availability to retailers and online, as well as through hospitals and home health care for those most vulnerable,” the company said in a news release.
“At Nestlé we are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to get parents and caregivers the formula they need so their children can thrive,” it added. “We prioritized these products because they serve a critical medical purpose as they are for children with cow’s milk protein allergies.”
Under “Operation Fly Formula,” the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services are authorized to request Department of Defence support to pick up overseas baby formula that meets U.S. health and safety standards, so it can get to store shelves faster, according to the USDA.
Alfamino is primarily available through hospitals and home health-care companies that serve patients at home.
U.S. regulators and the manufacturer, Abbott Nutrition, hope to have its Michigan plant reopened next week, but it will take about two months before product is ready for delivery. The Food and Drug Administration this week eased importation requirements for baby formula to try to lessen the supply crunch, which has left store shelves void of some brands and some retailers rationing supply for parents nervous about feeding their children.
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