Robert Califf testifies before a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension in Washington, on Dec. 14, 2021. | Manuel Balce Ceneta, File/AP Photo
By Meredith Lee
05/25/2022 04:30 AM EDT
The FDA’s top official will acknowledge a string of failures that contributed to the current infant formula shortages when he faces lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
In their prepared testimony released Tuesday evening, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and several senior officials for the first time lay out a timeline of the agency’s response to reports last fall that infants had been hospitalized after consuming formula made at an Abbott Nutrition plant in Sturgis, Mich. And they say a whistleblower report alleging food safety problems at the plant, which was mailed in October, did not reach the FDA’s highest rungs until mid-February, despite being sent directly to then-acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and others.
The Abbott plant was temporarily shut down in February, after an FDA inspection in January found five different strains of a potentially deadly bacteria known as Cronobacter sakazakii, the bacteria that sickened the four infants. Two of those infants died. At the same time, Abbott also issued a recall of some formula made at the plant, exacerbating a shortage of infant formula that began during the pandemic.
The FDA now finds itself at the center of a political firestorm over the shortages, which have sent parents scrambling for alternative sources. The need...
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