Let Us REASON Together

A lot of people are missing the big picture on the baby formula shortage. This isn’t just about potentially tainted formula & its recall....

— Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) May 13, 2022

Well, of course they are. Please, Twitter, enlighten us!

Partly, we can blame tariffs & quotas.

But another major reason is that the US gov't *doesn’t like the way foreign formula is labeled* 😔

Officials apparently think formula with labels that don’t conform to their every whim are so dangerous it would be better if kids starve

— Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) May 13, 2022

Or we could look at the fact that Abbott reportedly controls 80% of the formula market. The other story is that there are only 3 (or 4, accounts vary) formula manufacturers in America. Where is the Sherman Anti-Trust Act when we need it? But let's blame the lack of imports, instead. (Curiously, the cry now is for domestic oil production, v. unreliable foreign sources (hem-hem, Russia). But baby formula? Why can't we get more from Europe? In a word: labels.

Many American parents praise baby formula imported from the EU. But they have to buy it on the black market.

The FDA won’t allow European formulas to be sold here because of inane labeling concerns (something @EricBoehm87 delves into here https://t.co/vgDQShzVqx)

— Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) May 13, 2022

Yes, says REASON, blame "inane labelling requirements." Why is this important? Because rich white women who write for "REASON", and their peers, agree: European is better!

European baby formula is also more likely to be organic, derived from grass-fed cows, & made w/milk fat (as opposed to plant-based fats). There are also more goat-milk based and “gentle” options sold there than there are here.

— Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) May 13, 2022

And our labelling laws are bad! Even though the EU has similar requirements on American products:

Importation from the EU is not "just about labels".

It is about ingredients, processes, quality control, etc.

The FDA requires anyone that wants to sell in the US to pass certain requirements to guarantee US consumers get safe products.

The EU does the same for US products!

— 42 IS THE ANSWER, FOLLOW TO GET THE QUESTIONS !!! (@OneGuyOpinion42) May 13, 2022

There is some acknowledgment of a problem at Abbott (who goes unnamed here):

As Lincicome points out, concerns about EU baby formula safety ring especially hollow considering that “it was an unsanitary American factory that fueled our current crisis, and the FDA may have even ignored a whistleblower’s complaints about the situation"

— Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) May 13, 2022

How much have you heard about the "unsanitary American factory" being a cause of this problem?  Had the FDA listened to the whistleblower (assuming there was one; this is Twitter, after all), would the situation be any different now?  By which I mean, would people be praising FDA for protecting babies?  Or would they be screaming "WHERE'S MY BABY'S FOOD!????!!!!!?????!!!!"

And there's also this perfectly reasonable question:

Why can’t the European manufacturers print complying labels? US manufacturers have to comply with European label standards to export to Europe. Seems like an easy solution if European producers want this market.

— Jamie Roberts (@jroberts548) May 13, 2022

European car makers make right-hand drive cars for the British market, and cars conforming to US standards for the American market.  How hard would it be to print labels satisfactory to the FDA?

But the simpler answer, according to REASON, is: if the FDA relaxes label requirements for European baby formula, they have to relax label requirements for all products. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; just ask the courts, who would be dragged into that dispute lickety-split! And then labelling requirements crater, and we don't know what we're buying to eat, be it foreign or domestic. But as long as we're getting European baby formula for rich people's babies (formula is expensive, especially to people on the low end of the income scale. I remember it well.), who cares? Right?

I'll retire to Bedlam....