Sick babies are being hospitalized across US due to formula shortage

Babies are being hospitalized across the US due to worsening formula shortages, with doctors warning worse is to come - and parents blasting Joe Biden's slow response to bare shelves.

The Medical University of South Carolina confirmed that at least four babies have been admitted to the hospital due to the formula shortage as of Thursday night, while Dr. Mark Corkin said he's treating two toddlers for the same issue at the Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, CBS reported.

An unknown number of babies are also being treated at a hospital in Atlanta.

According to the hospitals, the babies were admitted due to reactions they suffered from drinking formula different from the ones they usually drank because parents could not find the product amid the shortage.

'I've never seen anything like this,' Corkins told CBS. 'They come in dehydrated. We give them IV fluids. We give them nutrition by vein. But that's not a long term solution.'

The hospitalization reports come after the Biden administration approved its 'Operation Fly Formula' to deliver more than two hundred pallets of formula from Germany to the U. S. on Friday.  The Nestle formula - enough for 1.5 million eight ounce bottles - should touch down in Indiana Saturday.

The nationwide shortage in baby formula comes after an Abbott plant in Sturgess, Massachusetts, was shut down in February following a contamination incident. Abbott is one of four producers of formula in the U. S., which relies on the companies for 98 percent of the baby formula it consumes.

That single plant in Sturgess produces 80 per cent of the domestic supply of amino acid formula.

The average out-of-stock rate for the key product hit 43 percent earlier this month, according to Datasembly.

It has left parents scrambling to find enough baby formula for their infants as they are faced with rows of empty shelves across the country, which are sporadically refilled as producers try to maintain a steady flow.

The situation has had a dire impact on babies who only consume a single brand of formula due to allergies or dietary restrictions... (Read more)

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