it s unclear where that s going. even with all these attention to these air lifts, parents may not see shelves looking very different. it s going to take a while until they really notice the things are getting better. more babies are being hospitalized due to the shortage. what do we know about their condition? could we see even more infants going to the hospital? i think we could unfortunately because this shortage is going to continue for a while. the babies that we have heard of, jake, they have conditions. and some of them are actually children. they have medical conditions where they need a very, very specific formula, and their parents tried to find replacements and they couldn t. and the children didn t tolerate it well. and so the children got dehydrated. they re now being fed on tubes into their stomachs. i m not saying there are a lot of these children out there. we don t have a number, but we have heard from a number of hospitals that this is going on, includin
shelves last week than the week before. when cnn pressed the white house on what federal agency had answers or who worried parents should call if they can t find baby formula, this was the white house response. we would certainly encourage any parent who has concerns about their child s health or well-being to call their doctor or pediatrician. peter pitts is joining us. good morning, sir, so nice to see you. we ve seen recalls of formula before, but this is really a perfect storm because at the same time you already had a really tangled supply chain. tell us what is happening here and who is responsible. that is a great question because it really isn t a supply chain issue like gasoline. this is an issue because the baby formula business is a consolidated industry. there aren t a lot of players here. so when you take abbott out, not surprisingly, you have shortages. who is to blame? i think the blame is placed squarely on abbott which is the company, fda inspected th
abroad but also production we can ramp up here in the united states as well. the baby formula business, as you know, in the united states is dominated by three or four major players. the recall in abbott happened back in february. president biden only invoked the defense production act last week. why was the biden administration so slow to respond to this crisis? well, we acted immediately, and here s what happened, which is in mid-february, as you said, that abbott facility was closed. immediately after that, the fda began working with the other producers, as you say, there s too few producers in the market, but began working with them to ramp up their production. that got us to the point where as of last week, the other producers in the united states had gotten their production up 50%, 30%, to really record levels. that s where the defense production act comes in, because sustaining that production at those record levels means that these producers need to have access to all of th
shelves last week than the week before. when cnn pressed the white house on what federal agency had answers or who worried parents should call if they can t find baby formula, this was the white house response. we would certainly encourage any parent who has concerns about their child s health or well-being to call their doctor or pediatrician. peter pitts is joining us. good morning, sir, so nice to see you. we ve seen recalls of formula before, but this is really a perfect storm because at the same time you already had a really tangled supply chain. tell us what is happening here and who is responsible. that is a great question because it really isn t a supply chain issue like gasoline. this is an issue because the baby formula business is a consolidated industry. there aren t a lot of players here. so when you take abbott out, not
Reckitt will retain an 8% stake in the unit and sees net cash proceeds of about $1.3 billion, which it plans to use to reduce debt, the company said in a statement. The sale marks the end of Reckitts venture into the baby-formula business started just four years ago.