- The three leading manufacturers of baby formula had no site visits from the FDA in 2020, the AP found.
- A shutdown due to unsanitary conditions at one Abbott Nutrition plant led to the ongoing shortages.
- The FDA told the AP it skipped 15,000 inspections due to COVID-19 and is working through a backlog.
US food safety regulators did not inspect any of the three largest baby-formula manufacturers in 2020, an Associated Press review of federal records found.
Two of the three firms — Abbott, the maker of Similac, and Reckitt, which makes Enfamil — accounted for nearly 80% of the $4 billion baby-formula market in 2021. However, apparently neither they nor Gerber were on the Food and Drug Administration's list of "mission critical" inspections during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, per the AP.
"The FDA would have had more chances to catch these issues if they'd been inspecting during the pandemic," food safety specialist Sarah Sorscher told the AP.
Current law only requires inspections of baby formula facilities every three to five years, but the FDA had been conducting at least once-a-year visits until 2019. New legislation would require twice-yearly inspections.
The ongoing national shortage of baby formula began after one Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan was shut down after four children got sick after consuming the company's powdered Similac.
An investigation later found unsanitary conditions at the plant, though the company maintains that the bacteria that caused the illnesses did not originate there.
The FDA told the AP it skipped about 15,000 inspections in the US because of pandemic safety measures, but it has caught up on 5,000 of those at a rate it says is ahead of schedule.
