By John, “Ubaldi Reports”

Since the beginning of his presidency, President Biden and his administration have lurched from crisis to crisis beginning with immigration, Afghanistan, Ukraine, but equally important to Americans is the economy as he is now dealing with the crisis over inflation, gas prices, rising food costs and now the impact over a shortage of baby formula.

The country is now facing a critical shortage of baby formula after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shut down Abbott Laboratories, a mega baby food formula manufacturer over unsanitary like conditions. Abbott produces around 40% of all baby food formula in the country.

The FDA shut down Abbott in February after various brands were recalled due to complaints after four infants fell severely ill from dangerous bacteria from ingesting the powdered form of the baby formula. The FDA then launched an investigation to include an onsite inspection, as earlier tests had found bacteria Abbott’s facilities.

The focus has been on the closure of Abbott’s facilities in February, but this crisis began much earlier than has been initially reported or known to the American public,

During the period of September 2021 through February 2022, the CDC received various reports of the Cronobacter bacteria cases in infants in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas, which resulted in four illnesses with two deaths of two infants. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the FDA ultimately concluded its findings to the consumption of powdered infant formula produced by Abbott in its Sturgis, Michigan plant. This ushered in a worldwide recall of formula which had been produced; unfortunately this led to bare shelves in the U.S. and forced parents to scramble for safe alternatives to feed their infant children.

The bacteria in question according to the CDC is Cronbacter which can cause severe, life-threatening infections or meningitis, the infections typically are rare , but can be extremely deadly for newborns in first days or weeks of life with mortality rates hovering between 50% and 80%.

Typically only a small number of Cronobacter infections are reported each year, but given only the state of Minnesota requires labs to report positive tests, there is no way to ascertain how many cases were missed.

The bigger question we should be asking why are we just finding out about the bacterial infection at the Abbott facility now, when there was ample warning signs way before the public first became aware, and before shortages of baby formula became apparent at local grocery stores.

The situation at Abbott first surfaced in September 2019, which happened to be the the last time the FDA inspected the plant, and incidentally cited the company for failing to test adequate amount of the baby formula to assure it met “the required microbiological quality standards.”

For two years the FDA had no on-site inspections of Abbott facilities and it wasn’t until September 2021 that the FDA returned for inspections. Once the FDA did return to the Abbott facility they found several problematic concerns that could lead to formula contamination, such as, Abbott failing to “maintain a building used in the manufacture, processing, packing or holding of infant formula in a clean and sanitary condition.”

A confidential whistleblower sent a document to top FDA officials in October, 2021 over serious failures to protect the safety of baby formula.  Democrat U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut wants to know as she stated, “I am deeply concerned about the practices at this Abbott facility and their apparent failure to implement and enforce internal controls at this facility. We need to know exactly who in the company was aware of this failure and the alleged attempts to hide this information from the FDA,”

Ironically during this period the FDA didn’t have a permeate director until February of 2022, when Robert Califf was confirmed by the Senate. This should be concerning since the nation was in the midst of a pandemic, why wasn’t this top concern for President Biden. We don’t know why it wasn’t?

Questions remain, such as once the FDA shut down the Abbott facility in Michigan in February why wasn’t adequate plans establish to replace the baby formula so there wasn’t empty grocery store shelves.

Why haven’t we heard from Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Commerce Gina Marie Raimondo, Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh, Health and Human Secretary Xavier Becerra, and finally FDA Director Robert Califf who all have various overlap of this serious issue?

Why wasn’t Health and Human Secretary Xavier Becerra more involved, since the FDA reports directly to him?

Considering in November reports were coming in that baby formula inventories were declining at grocery stores throughout the country, why did administration at the various agencies with oversite and responsibility ignore these reports?

It has also been reported that confirmed by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Biden administration that pallets of baby formula had been transferred to the border to deal with ongoing illegal migrant surge. Why was baby formula sent to the border but not to local grocery stores?

Abbott acknowledged in the March 2022 recall notice of having found “evidence of Cronobacter sakazakii in the plant in non-product contact areas,” but vehemently denied having any Cronobacter bacteria in its finished product.

This would appear to be in direct contradiction to the FDA’s revelation that the company had recorded the destruction of product in the past due to the presence of Cronobacter. Specifically, “a review of the firm’s internal records also indicates environmental contamination with Cronobacter sakazakii and the firm’s destruction of product due to the presence of Cronobacter.”

Currently Abbott denies being the source of the outbreak.

This crisis along with the other crisis’s faced by President Biden have him consistently reacting to events instead of being proactive, remember we were told at the beginning of the Biden administration that we now have the adults in charge of the government, then why has Biden lurched from crisis to crisis?