Keystone Today

As parents in Pennsylvania and across the nation face a shortage of baby formula, a Florida lawmaker says she has proof that the Biden administration is supplying undocumented immigrants at the Southern border with plenty of formula.

She says this type of action is contributing to Biden's "America last agenda."

Following a sudden plant shutdown of major infant formula producer Abbott Nutrition in February, the country is being plagued by a formula shortage and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is said to have dragged its feet on a whistleblower report from late last year. 

Pittsburgh's NPR News Station reports that Pennsylvania parents have been scrambling in recent weeks to find infant formula. For parents whose babies require a specific type of formula, the challenge is even greater.

“Literally, in the last week, it's been nowhere to be found,” Ross Township mother Deanna Tomaselli told NPR, about the specific Enfamil formula her 11-month-old daughter eats.

"It's time for President Biden to address the baby formula shortage that Pennsylvania families with young children are facing," U.S. Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) wrote in a May 12 tweet.

After receiving information from a border patrol agent that the Southern border has a baby formula stockpile for undocumented migrants, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) made a trip to the border to see for herself, according to Fox Business. Her trip confirmed there are "multiple stock warehouses filled with baby formula."

"This crisis is a direct consequence of Biden's FDA canceling 43% of Abbot's baby formula production with no plan to backfill that market share," Cammack wrote in a May 17 tweet. "Unfortunately, the Biden administration is broken and doesn't know how to fix the problem; they only know how to create problems."

According to the Washington Examiner, Cammack first notified the public about the border patrol report in a Facebook Live post on May 11.

“They are sending pallets, pallets of baby formula to the border,” Cammack said in the video. “Meanwhile, in our own district at home, we cannot find baby formula. It is not the children’s fault at all. But what is infuriating to me is that this is another example of the 'America last agenda' that the Biden administration continues to perpetuate.”

That same day, Cammack tweeted two comparison photos, one she received from a border patrol agent showing the full shelves at the Southern border and the other of a partially bare local grocery store shelf that normally would contain baby formula.

Fortune reported that the formula shortage stems from an incident on Feb. 17 when Abbott Nutrition voluntarily recalled its products manufactured in Sturgis, Michigan, and shut down the plant, following reports that four infants fell ill from a bacterial infection and two died after consuming formula produced in the Michigan manufacturing plant.

A whistleblower report, submitted to the FDA in October, named further health and safety compliance issues at the facility and contributed to a formal inspection by the agency early this year.

The FDA's slow reaction to whistleblower reports of tainted formula back in October is being blamed for the formula shortage. According to Observer, it wasn't until January that the FDA started an investigation into food safety practices at the facility in Sturgis, three months after the initial reports. It wasn't until Feb. 17 that the FDA warned consumers about certain powdered infant formula products from the Sturgis plant and Abbott closed the facility while initiating a recall.

According to the The Washington Post, it'll be weeks until production and distribution are back to normal. Former FDA associate commissioner Peter Pitts told The Post the situation illustrates “a serious problem across the FDA portfolio, where there are a limited number of manufacturers. Making baby formula is a sophisticated, expensive proposition, so consolidation is going to happen. The downside is when one of those facilities goes offline.”