Formula Plant Behind Recall Continues to be Gross and Unsafe
“I can’t have this on my conscience,” one of the plant workers said.
🥦🥬🥒We are cheaper than a bottle of green juice from Whole Foods, consider your choices.🥦🥒🥬
A recent whistleblower article published in ProPublica about the conditions at an infant formula plant reveals behavior and practices that frankly made me feel like vomiting after reading about them. Keep in mind, this plant, based in Sturgis, Michigan (yes, that one), was the epicenter of the formula recall from just a few years ago due a lethal bacterial contamination.
According to anonymous workers in an Abbott-owned plant in Sturgis:
A piece of dirty cardboard was used as a tool to funnel coconut oil into a tank that included ingredients making the company’s Pure Bliss by Similac Organic brand
Those fancy amino acids that make formula “just like breastmilk”? Apparently the employees found that it was “crusty” and “chunky” and 10 months past their expiration date but the company signed off on using them anyway so as not to stall production
Reports of persistent leaks and water and chemicals on the floor. All crunchy moms know what water leaks mean: MOLD (and potential for bacterial growth)
In one spot on the factory floor, white sweetener oozed from a pipe and formed a pile like a stalagmite on top of a tank used for blending
The plant workers ProPublica spoke to said they did not want to be named because they feared repercussions from Abbott management, but they felt compelled to speak up out of concern that a baby who drank formula made at the plant would fall ill. “I can’t have this on my conscience,” one of the workers said.
Abbott insists that these claims are misleading and that the factory is running safely and according to stringent standards. Not only that, Abbott congratulated their employees in a company wide email by announcing that they’re churning out more formula than ever and ahead of schedule!
Whistleblowers at the plant also said that Abbot is putting pressure on the factory floor to work fast and cut corners in order to meet production deadlines, a practice that has caused compromised quality control.
Important to note: Abbott is one of only three formula companies that control 90% of the formula market in the United States. Abbott also has a government contract the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, Children (WIC) which provides subsidized/free formula to HALF of all recipients nationwide. In other words, Abbott’s Sturgis manufacturers millions and millions of cans of formula that go to needy women and infants.
Uhhh, this sounds terrifying isn’t Robert Kennedy Jr and Operation Stork Speed going to clean up formula, though???
No. Not even close. In fact, it’s all leaving infants worse off.
To begin with, RFK Jr. recently announced Operation Stork Speed (highly praised by crunchy influencers around the clean food sphere). Stork Speed focuses on:
Increased testing for heavy metals and other contaminants in infant formula and foods for young children
A comprehensive review of infant formula nutrients, the first since 1998
‘Encouraging’ formula manufacturers to work with the FDA on clearer labeling and increased transparency about ingredients
Filling ‘research gaps’ regarding short- and long-term health outcomes associated with formula feeding
None of these issues address the very real and lethal dangers that we know can lurk in powdered baby formula. While we can all agree that seed oils are probably not great for you when consumed long term, in the very immediate short term, there is bacteria, cronobacter, that can easily contaminate baby formula and can kill infants with just ONE SIP. American mothers just lived through this nightmare and we are even further away from solving it.
In fact, RFK Jr. just appointed Kyle Diamantas, a former attorney who worked for the law firm that defended Abbott in court against families whose babies died as a result of using tainted formula as the person in charge of regulating formula.
That’s the literal definition of a fox in the hen house.
Well, damn. What’s White Kanye doing about this???
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is out there firing thousands of FDA workers--3,500 to be exact--who were the only ones in charge of independent testing and surprise visits to the factories like the Abbott plant. Effectively, this lets the industry police themselves. Taco trucks and nail salons have more surprise inspections than formula plants, cool cool cool cool.
The Original Farm to Table Product: Breastmilk
We don’t need some fancy, crunchy, seed-oil-less formula so we can have more people say “Look! Formula is just as good as breastmilk! It has no seed oils!”
We need REAL support for moms to BREASTFEED (and yes, someone who can actually regulate these HUGE conglomerate food factories. Why not appoint the lawyer who recently beat the pants off of Abbott instead?).
Better yet I’d love to see the U.S government, instead of subsidizing formula feeding, put more effort into giving women the support for breastfeeding. Look at all the resources that are going to be wasted trying to “make formula healthy” when we have a PERFECT SUBSTANCE COMING OUT OF OUR LITERAL BODIES that is FREE for babies. I feel like I’ve taken crazy pills. Do people not realize this? Does RFK not realize that most barriers to breastfeeding are cultural, societal and political?
Breastmilk is the original local, organic food, and we don’t even have to worry about regulation, safety and inspections when women are given optimal support and conditions to be able to do that. Breastfeeding is the real freedom, not depending on these corporations.
Of course, breastfeeding doesn’t work out for all moms but instead of dismissing all critiques as “judgmental” or “shaming” why not be transparent about the risks of formula feeding and why not fight like hell to minimize those risks? If you want to support formula moms, make formula safer TODAY.
We also have cute merch now:
Let’s not forget that formula companies finance lobbying efforts against parental leave in the US.
I work for WIC and am an IBCLC and we do promote and support breastfeeding; however, the support and education, or lack thereof, is not the issue that prevents most moms from breastfeeding. It's the deep mistrust of and lack of healthy connection with their own bodies that the patriarchy has instilled, lack of physical, emotional, and financial support after delivery, unresolved attachment trauma, and stress of going back to work and managing everything including now pumping, which in most cases leads to giving up and using formula, even in the most supported moms, and then that often leads to moms giving up entirely on breastfeeding. This is a system and societal issue that is not supportive of the needs of parents and infants. Yet "they" want more babies. Ok. Implement programs to fully support parents (mom and dad) and their babies, however they choose to feed, during the most crucial time of development if we want an optimally functioning future society. It does, indeed, take a village to raise a child; yet we are isolated more than ever.