Politico reported that Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) yesterday demanded that Abbott Nutrition hand over information and documents related to the company’s recent recall and customer complaint. “It is completely unacceptable that manufacturing conditions allowed a contaminated product to reach babies, and that it took months for the company to act to warn parents and caregivers about this danger,” the senators wrote Abbott CEO and chair Robert Ford, citing POLITICO’s reporting. More reports from Texas and Maryland have been reported, and moms have flooded social media with complaints and unconfirmed anecdotes of infant illnesses and hospitalizations. Federal health officials have not publicly updated their case counts in more than a week. The timeline from the first illness to the sweeping recall spans months. The FDA initiated an inspection of the facility on Jan. 31. Inspectors found Cronobacter sakazakii in several environmental samples taken at the plant. The product was recalled on Feb. 17, about three weeks after the inspection kicked off. The FDA was actually in the plant for a routine inspection a few days after the first case was reported to FDA and CDC, but it doesn’t appear inspectors were looking for Cronobacter. The plant was not inspected in 2020, likely due to Covid-19. @ https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/26/senators-demand-answers-from-abbott-on-infant-formula-recall-00012073
