U.S. military bases are “not immune” to the baby formula shortage across America, with Pentagon spokesman John Kirby saying commissaries stateside are at 50 percent and overseas bases are at 70 percent of their normal stock levels.
The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) has been working “very hard” with distributors to address product disruptions and ensure U.S. military families at home and at overseas bases have everything they need to feed their children, Kirby said.
“DeCA is monitoring the current market situation impacting the supply of baby formula. Our assessment right now is that both overseas and remote commissaries are currently at an adequate level of supplies for baby formula,” he said.
Kirby was unable to confirm how the 50 percent stock levels of baby formula were distributed across the bases in the continental United States.
“I can’t speak for every military family at every base, and what every commissary has on any given hour on their shelves,” he said.
“What we can say is that we aren’t immune to the same supply chain problems that the rest of the country is facing,” he went on to say, adding that they take their responsibility to ensure U.S. military families have what they need to take care of themselves and feed their children.
The United States has faced a shortage of baby formula after Abbott Laboratories was subject to a federal investigation over alleged bacterial contamination.
“This is a major step toward re-opening our Sturgis facility so we can ease the nationwide formula shortage,” Abbott CEO Robert Ford said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the FDA to quickly and safely re-open the facility.”
He added that “we know millions of parents and caregivers depend on us and we’re deeply sorry that our voluntary recall worsened the nationwide formula shortage” and will “work hard to re-earn the trust that moms, dads, and caregivers have placed in our formulas for more than 50 years.”
More than 40 percent of baby formula products are out of stock across the United States during the week ending May 8, analytics firm Datassembly stated. The supply shortage was caused, in part, by the shutdown of the Sturgis plant after four infants who allegedly consumed formula made in the facility got sick with a type of bacterial infection, including two deaths.
