Stabenow: ‘The FDA Was Too Slow’ – Gave USDA Only Two Weeks’ Notice of Formula Plant Shutdown

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) stated that the FDA moved too slowly to address the formula shortage and didn’t notify the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) until two weeks before the Abbott plant was shut down and that it seems as though “FDA thought it was going to be a short shutdown, and then the plant itself, Abbott, has been resistant, really, in my judgment, to really quickly doing what they need to do.”

Stabenow said, “USDA was given about two weeks’ heads-up before the plant closed, and so — which was a whole nother question here in my deep concerns about the USDA and the plant. I mean, Abbott is still not accepting responsibility for this.”

She later added, “I mean, there was a whistleblower in October…who I understand was subsequently fired. The FDA was too slow. They kept going into the plant, but didn’t actually find anything until the end of January, and then, again, didn’t tell other parts of the government, like USDA, who is responsible for half the baby formula distribution in the country, until two weeks before the plant was shut down. And there’s a combination, though, I mean, this is a huge plant that one out of five cans of baby food in the country are manufactured at this plant. So, this is huge, and there needed to be a greater sense of urgency. What we’re unwinding here is that it appears that FDA thought it was going to be a short shutdown, and then the plant itself, Abbott, has been resistant, really, in my judgment, to really quickly doing what they need to do.”

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