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The American Ashley Maddox with her son Cole: She organized baby food through a Facebook group, "it was a miracle" to find any more, she says.
The background to the shortage is the failure of a factory of the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the USA
Photo: Gregory Bull / picture alliance/dpa/AP
For many parents in the US, the situation is frightening.
In large parts of the country, a product that is essential for survival is currently missing from supermarket shelves: baby milk.
The US government now wants to take action against the dramatic supply bottlenecks with an airlift.
In order to be able to supply families with powdered milk, the US government resorts to an armaments law from the Cold War.
US President Joe Biden decided to use the Defense Production Act, originally introduced for wartime, to boost production of baby food, the White House announced on Wednesday evening.
Specifically, Biden ordered manufacturers of infant formula to be given the necessary ingredients by suppliers in preference to other customers.
The law allows US presidents to intervene in the private sector in the interests of national security.
In the corona pandemic, the regulation was last used to oblige companies to increase the production of medical devices and protective masks.
In order to expedite the import of baby milk powder, Biden has now also instructed that Department of Defense airliners could be used to bring infant formula from abroad to the United States, it said.
The Department of Defense "will use its contracts with commercial cargo airlines, as it did in the early months of the Covid pandemic, to ship products from factories overseas," the White House said.
Bypassing the regular air freight routes saves a lot of time.
This offers a short-term solution until manufacturers can continue to ramp up production.
Failure of a factory is the trigger of the crisis
The background to the shortage is the failure of a factory at Abbott, the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the USA.
The producer had recalled several product lines after four infants became ill and two died, possibly due to bacterial contamination.
Production at one of the company's plants in the state of Michigan has been completely stopped for the time being.
The dramatic bottlenecks cause despair for many parents.
Old recipes for making breast milk substitutes at home are reportedly currently circulating.
According to Google Trends, searches for such formulas have increased by 2400 percent in the past few days.
However, experts warn against mixing substitutes yourself.
Such agents are particularly dangerous in the first few months of a child's life.
They may be lacking in essential nutrients, and home sterility requirements may be difficult to meet.
Continued dieting of designated substitutes can lead to severe malnutrition and death, Steven Abrams, former chair of the American Academy of Paediatrics' Nutrition Committee, warns on the BBC.
European manufacturers announce exceptional deliveries
On Monday, the US government announced that it would allow more imports of baby milk powder because of the bottlenecks.
The leading European manufacturers Reckitt Benckiser and Nestlé announced on Tuesday that they would be exporting more baby food to the United States than usual.
According to its own statements, the US drug agency FDA also agreed with Abbott on various precautions to reopen the affected factory.
However, the company said it would take several weeks before production there could start again and baby milk formula could be delivered to retailers.
asc/dpa/afp/Reuters