The Baby Formula Shortage

 We got used to hearing about various shortages, such as toilet paper, during the pandemic.  However, now that we are emerging from the pandemic (sort of) there is a new shortage.  Atlantic Magazine has this article on the subject.

"Three factors are driving the U.S. baby-formula shortage: bacteria, a virus, and a trade policy...."

"First, the bacteria. After the recent deaths of at least two infants from a rare infection, the Food and Drug Administration investigated Abbott, a major producer of infant formula, and discovered traces of the pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii in a Michigan plant. As a result, the FDA recalled several brands of formula, and parents were advised to not buy or use some formula tied to the plant."

"Recalls are common. Thousands of drugs and products are recalled every year, and they don’t create a meltdown at pharmacies or require CVS to instate Soviet-style rationing of essentials. So something else is going on here."

"That brings us to the second cause: the virus. The pandemic has snarled all sorts of supply chains, but I can’t think of a market it’s yanked around more than infant formula. “During the spring of 2020, formula sales rocketed upwards as people stockpiled formula just like they stockpiled toilet paper,” Lyman Stone, the director of research at the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, told me. Then, as “families worked through their stockpiles, sales fell a lot. This oscillation made planning for production extremely difficult. It was complicated to get an idea of the actual market size.” Meanwhile, Stone’s research has found that an uptick in births in early 2022 has corresponded with a “very dramatic decline in rates of breastfeeding” among new mothers, which pushed up demand for formula once again."

"...Finally, the third factor: America’s regulatory and trade policy. And while that might not sound as interesting to most people as bacteria and viruses, it might be the most important part of the story.... FDA regulation of formula is so stringent that most of the stuff that comes out of Europe is illegal to buy here due to technicalities like labeling requirements. Nevertheless, one study found that many European formulas meet the FDA nutritional guidelines—and, in some ways, might even be better than American formula..."

"America’s formula policy warps the industry in one more way. The Department of Agriculture has a special group called WIC—short for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—that provides a variety of services to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their young children. It is also the largest purchaser of infant formula in the United States, awarding contracts to a small number of approved formula companies.  As a result, the U.S. baby formula industry is minuscule, by design. A 2011 analysis by USDA reported that three companies accounted for practically all U.S. formula sales: Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Gerber."

"The Biden administration is focused on expanding domestic manufacturing of formula to meet families’ needs. But the bigger problem is our trade policy. “The U.S. is a captive market for domestic dairy producers like Abbott, and during times of crisis, the lack of alternative supplies becomes a pretty big problem,” Scott Lincicome, the director of general economics and trade for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told me."

"Conservative populists and even liberals who are skeptical of globalization sometimes argue that if the U.S. made everything within our borders, our economy would be more resilient. But the baby-formula shortage suggests that things don’t always work out that way. Instead, we’re seeing what happens when we reduce trade with other countries for an essential good: We’re more vulnerable to emergencies like a bacteria-infested plant in Michigan.There is a better way. “What we should want to maximize is total global capacity and system-wide flexibility and dynamism,” Lincicome said. “The location of the supply doesn’t matter as much as having as much as possible within a nimble system that can replace one plant’s supply with another’s.”

One thing I have been seeing a lot of are stringent warnings to parents not to try making homemade formula.  In my opinion this is overhyped.  Plenty of mothers in the 1950s and '60s, including mine,  made baby formula at home, using directions supplied by their doctors.  My mother ran into problems trying to breastfeed me, and weened me to a commercial formula, SMA.  With the younger kids she made her own.  The ingredients were only three; Carnation milk, Karo syrup, and water, so "simple sourced".  I remember that she used boiled water and sterilized the bottles. And was careful about refrigerating it. She made a batch every day. Doctors at that time prescribed vitamin drops to supply the vitamins not in the milk.

The word now is that cow's milk and sugars are bad for babies.  I have news for them, most of the commercial formulas which aren't soy based, or special needs ones such as Alimentum, are dairy based, and all of them include sugars of one sort or another. The homemade formula obviously wouldn't be a good choice for babies who had an allergy or intolerance for cow's milk, or who needed specially predigested formulas.  But the homemade variety has enough calories and protein to tide babies on regular formula over until their preferred formula was available. Therein lies part of the problem.  The homemade kind was well -liked by babies, but was too high in calories over the long term, and could result in higher weight gain than would be healthy. Which is why the mothers would be well-advised to switch back to the commercial formula once it was available. But all the "don't try this at home" advice doesn't give parents enough credit for being able to follow simple directions.  And by the way, all the new "plant based" milks such as almond, oat, or coconut, simply don't have enough protein or calcium to make good baby formula. The exception is soy formula, which has been around a long time.