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Two Tennessee children with “specific dietary requirements” had to be hospitalized due to the crippling national shortage of baby formula.
The children were hospitalized this month at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, according to Dr. Mark Corkins, division chief of pediatric gastroenterology at the hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
“These are young children who have health conditions and special medical needs that have specific dietary requirements,” Corkins said in a statement. “Their bodies did not adapt well to the new formula type and they required treatment via IV fluids and supplemental nutrition.”
The children are 5 and 8 years old, according to the Commercial Appeal.
Corkins said experts at Le Bonheur were “making multiple substitutions throughout a child’s care to ensure that their nutritional needs are met. This can be a complicated and cumbersome process and is extremely difficult for parents to navigate on their own.”
Both children required an amino acid-based formula because they have short bowel syndrome — a condition that makes them unable to efficiently digest food, the Commercial Appeal reported.
One child was discharged Tuesday, while the other remained hospitalized in stable condition after receiving treatment for dehydration and complications from a lack of nutrients they normally received through specialized formulas produced by Abbott Laboratories, according to the news outlet.
Abbott, whose recall of infant formulas made at a Michigan plant has been widely blamed for the nationwide shortage, announced Monday it had reached an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration on how to restart production.
Once a court signs off on the deal and the FDA gives the go-ahead to reopen the problem-plagued facility, Abbott could restart formula production within two weeks — though it will still be six to eight weeks before its products become publicly available.
Abbott also claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had found no “conclusive evidence” linking formulas made at its Sturgis, Mich., facility to the infant illnesses and deaths that triggered the initial recall in February.
Four babies had become ill — two of them fatally — with bacterial infections after drinking formula made at the Sturgis plant, leading the company to voluntarily recall products made at the facility while the FDA and CDC conducted an investigation.
The FDA closed the Abbott plant after federal inspectors found it failed to maintain sanitary conditions and procedures there — sparking a cascade of crippling effects on the supply chain.
“As soon as I heard about the contamination at Abbott’s warehouse, I knew it was going to be a crisis,” Corkins told the Commercial Appeal. “The patients that I treat, they’ve lost some of their intestines. They need to immediately absorb these amino acids, they don’t have a regular digestive tract that absorbs [nutrients].”
William Marler, a lawyer specializing in food safety cases, told The Post last week that “somebody, whether it be Abbott or the FDA, should have realized, ‘We’re stopping production at one of a handful of plants that produces baby formula and what are the repercussions.’
“That’s where the FDA and Abbott dropped the ball. … They could have recalled the product without shutting the facility. They do recalls all the time without shutting the facility down,” he added.