(CNN)A former employee at Abbott Nutrition filed a whistleblower complaint about the company's Sturgis, Michigan, plant with the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration in February 2021, months earlier than previously known, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Wednesday.
The complaint was filed February 16, 2021, and was passed on to Abbott and the US Food and Drug Administration three days later, the source said.
The news was first reported Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, which also said the whistleblower was terminated in August 2020 and filed a discrimination complaint with Michigan OSHA shortly after.
Abbott submitted a formal response to the February complaint in April 2021, according to documents and an unnamed source, the Journal said. The whistleblower then filed a complaint with the FDA in October 2021 that expanded on the safety claims made in the February complaint, the Journal reported.
The October 2021 complaint was released in late April by US Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who called its allegations "extremely disturbing."
Abbott said Wednesday that it wasn't aware of that complaint until its release in April, "and there's an open investigation into these allegations."
The FDA interviewed the whistleblower in December 2021, and FDA inspectors conducted in-person "for cause" inspections of the Sturgis facility between January and March 2022. At the same time, the FDA was learning about four dangerous Cronobacter infections...
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