[HN Gopher] Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula ...
___________________________________________________________________
Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
Author : mhb
Score : 159 points
Date : 2022-05-14 16:12 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It's not surprising that Reason points to trade restrictions
| which makes sense because importing food from Europe should not
| be an issue, but on the other hand, why does the government,
| federal or local not have a stockpile of well... the stuff you
| feed infant children with?
|
| Same situation as the masks again. Yes, free trade alleviates
| these issues but only if you're not in global bottleneck which
| seem to be increasingly common with supply chain and production
| issues. This is food security, and countries should have the
| industrial capacity and backup to not end up with empty shelves.
| bsder wrote:
| > why does the government, federal or local not have a
| stockpile of well
|
| Because the real issue is that we have no diversity of supply.
|
| 1) We have allowed everything to become monopolized such that
| losing a single supplier knocks out large chunks of supply. At
| this point, it is quite clear that for economic robustness, any
| company found to control more than 25% of the market for any
| product should be repeatedly broken in two until that is no
| longer true. But that would require robust anti-trust
| enforcement.
|
| 2) The suppliers are Always-Late(tm) Inventory optimized such
| that they can't absorb a significant uptick in demand without a
| long wind up time. Covid comprehensively demonstrated that
| industrial producers no longer have the ability to "retool". By
| removing as many humans from production and replacing them with
| automation, the productions lines have traded any flexibility
| for maximum profit.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In 1, what's the product that you're considering the market
| share of? An iphone 13 mini? All iPhones? All smartphones? Or
| any phone? Or any portable computing device?
|
| A Macbook? Or a laptop? Or a computer? Or a computing device
| (to include laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones)?
| ipsin wrote:
| I don't understand what the two have to do with each other.
|
| You say there's already a monopoly but if we'd bought a
| stockpile from the monopoly at market prices, we'd... still
| have a stockpile.
| chitowneats wrote:
| In addition to this, the reason that Europe is an attractive
| option for baby formula is because their regulatory bodies take
| "food for infants" more seriously than we do here.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Does "Europe" have an abundant surplus of infant formula that
| they are prepared to export? A lot more mothers breast-feed
| in Europe, formula feeding is rather uncommon so why would
| one expect that inventory is available to send somewhere
| else?
|
| And then you have the mother in Tennessee who gets a can of
| German-labeled formula powder, with mixing instructions in
| metric. Is she going to add the correct amount of water? Or
| are we going to re-label it? Who does that? Who checks it?
| How long will it take?
|
| I don't think this is the simple answer it appears to be.
| molyss wrote:
| Being from Paris and living in The bay area, a lot more
| women breastfeed here than in France. Even in the
| countryside of France, where my extended family is, few
| women breastfeed.
|
| Please let's not make blanket statements about Europe vs
| USA.
|
| Clearly, European countries will be touchy about exporting
| baby formula. Also, the food regulation being widely
| different, I'm not sure how easily one could import
| european baby formula
| yakak wrote:
| > Clearly, European countries will be touchy about
| exporting baby formula.
|
| Formula will have to be labeled in English (and possibly
| French or Spanish) to not violate EU Export Regulations..
| No one got upset about bulk exports to China, shipping
| direct consumer containers was OTOH illegal.
| chitowneats wrote:
| These are fair points. I suppose I was giving Reason the
| benefit of the doubt about the EU being interested in
| selling some type of surplus. Certainly not a forgone
| conclusion, as you pointed out. The most potent critiques
| of libertarian thought often rest their case on the world
| as it is, not as the libertarians imagine it to be.
|
| I did a cursory googling and you are correct that formula
| feeding is less prevalent in Europe. TIL. My only knowledge
| was that, anecdotally, I know several expats that prefer EU
| formula for their kids. This jived with my general sense of
| more stringent EU regulation around food safety.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _The most potent critiques of libertarian thought often
| rest their case on the world as it is, not as the
| libertarians imagine it to be._
|
| Isn't that equally true for critiques of progressive
| thought?
| chitowneats wrote:
| Yes.
| samatman wrote:
| Certainly, since this would be the first food Americans
| have ever imported from Europe, there is no framework for
| Imperialization of nutrition labels, since no one has ever
| done it before in the history of ever. Congratulations you
| found a show-stopper!
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Of course EU producers who package food for export label
| it accordingly. However what Reason seems to be implying
| is that we just load up some cargo planes with pallets of
| surplus formula that are apparently not needed in Europe
| and bring it to the USA under some kind of "emergency"
| order.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| It can't be that hard to add a label on top of the
| existing label.
| golem14 wrote:
| In fact, a lot of somewhat shady spice packets you get at
| asian groceries in the bay area have a crummy paper
| sticker with english labeling over the Indian/Chinese/...
| original label.
|
| If this can happen for spices, why not for baby formula ?
|
| I think that this is a case of noone wanting to take the
| risk of eventually someone selling some product that is
| expired or otherwise bad with relaxed labeling/... rules.
| I can understand it, too, from a biz POV.
|
| I think the government needs to provide some sort of
| indemnification to importers/distributors/groceries. If
| the tradeoff demands it - 'X babies die/get sick because
| of malnutrition b/c missing baby formula' vs 'Y kids
| die/get sick because of bad baby formula.'
|
| X/Y are just hard to pin down.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > If this can happen for spices, why not for baby formula
| ?
|
| Surely this shoupd be bloody obvious? Like asking - if
| you can import dried fruit, why cant you import donated
| blood?
| semenko wrote:
| The lack of a stockpile is due to limited shelf stability and
| long-term bacterial growth.
|
| It's unfortunate Reason doesn't expand on the other side of
| this issue: the formula industry lobbied the FDA to reduce
| bacterial testing frequency (and inspections overall), with an
| emphasis on Cronobacter risks, arguing that the FDA
| "overestimat[ed] the expected annual incidence of Cronobacter
| infection". [1]
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2022/05/13/baby-formula-shortage-
| ab...
| pdonis wrote:
| _> free trade alleviates these issues but only if you 're not
| in global bottleneck_
|
| Which we are not with regard to infant formula; as the article
| notes, there's plenty in Europe that meets standards at least
| as stringent as US standards, the FDA just won't let US
| customers buy it because of stupid labeling requirements.
|
| Also, your implication that in a global bottleneck, free trade
| doesn't work as well as other solutions, is not correct. Free
| trade has the least severe failure modes in global bottlenecks,
| precisely _because_ there are no artificial impediments that
| get in the way of producers adjusting to market conditions
| according to straightforward economic incentives.
| 8note wrote:
| Isnt that a really easy to spin up business slapping stickers
| on bottles and shipping them to the states?
| [deleted]
| devman0 wrote:
| It likely isn't the FDA's choice, there are a lot of
| statutory requirements under 21 USC 350a that requires
| inspections, audits and specific quality control measures
| that can't be set aside via CFR with an emergency rule making
| process. Changing these would require Congress to act, but
| bilateral food regulations on something as sensitive as baby
| formula is not a topic that lends itself to quick resolution.
| nostromo wrote:
| You'll notice most of that law is giving authority to the
| Secretary of Health and Human Services, which is the same
| person that runs the FDA.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It does if the baby starves otherwise.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| > there's plenty in Europe
|
| Is that actually true? I would expect formula to be the kind
| of thing that has a very consistent demand profile, and there
| wouldn't be a lot of surge capacity in the European
| manufacturing plants.
| diob wrote:
| The classic, "if you're prepared and it doesn't happen, it
| looks wasteful" reason. Or even if it doesn't happen, because
| you were prepared and released the stockpile, folks don't
| realize that's the reason. So prep for some politician to cut
| it.
| daenz wrote:
| Plus, if it does happen, but the other party is in charge,
| they take all of the credit.
| Natsu wrote:
| Even if that happens, it's a good thing we filled up the
| oil reserves back when we did.
| daenz wrote:
| Agree it's a good thing. Purely from an incentive
| perspective though, there's a perverse incentive to let
| your opponents take the blame for things that you did,
| and take the credit for things that they did.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| or worse, we have too much captivity and donate overages...
| the horror
| ip26 wrote:
| Although, if it's more of a buffer in the supply chain
| instead of a strategic reserve, the waste doesn't have to be
| that great.
|
| Which takes us right back to JIT vs JIC.
|
| Perhaps sensible regulation on just how lean manufacturing
| may be in critical industries. (It's a race to the bottom, so
| re-define the bottom & let the market re-optimize)
| ip26 wrote:
| One fun thought: for identified industries, each production
| line maintains X days of inventory of any foreign
| dependencies. The implications are interesting to ponder.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Because like most things the govt stockpiles it would just go
| to waste.
|
| Why not just get rid of the regulations? It's free, and saves
| everyone money and alleviates shortages.
|
| Personally, I love having moved to a country where no one
| relies on the govt for anything.
| patmcc wrote:
| Because some of us don't want to buy infant formula that's
| full of lead, bacteria, cellulose, or whatever other garbage
| would end up in it?
| bumby wrote:
| Why not just go back before the FDA existed, in other words?
| Because it's generally frowned up when people mix things like
| plaster of paris, "bluish, white compound of true milk, pus
| and dirty water" and sell it as milk.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swill_milk_scandal
| _3u10 wrote:
| This stuff happens even with the FDA.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma
| 8note wrote:
| Risk isnt free, it's mitigated by insurance costs, and when
| the negatives happen, from the government stepping in as the
| last resort.
|
| You don't save money by sending infants to the emergency room
| because they are bad formula
| [deleted]
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Personally, I love having moved to a country where no one
| relies on the govt for anything."
|
| So it can be like supply of cocaine, laced with horse manure
| and rat poison?
| _3u10 wrote:
| I can assure you the cocaine here has far fewer impurities
| here than your FDA regulated / CIA sponsored coke in
| America.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _" only" if you're not in global bottleneck_
|
| Weird thing to bring up for this very local bottleneck.
|
| Mostly because of one factory being closed by regulators, if I
| understood things.
|
| There is tons of formula just across the borders in Canada and
| Mexico.
| cperciva wrote:
| There is formula available in Canada, but there have also
| been some shortages recently. We're not completely immune.
| avs733 wrote:
| It's also funny that the thread talking about how this problem
| results from one monopolistic factory/company is so much
| further down the front page compared to the one blaming
| government regulation
| willmadden wrote:
| The government regulations enable the monopolies. It's
| incestuous.
| vkou wrote:
| > why does the government, federal or local not have a
| stockpile of well... the stuff you feed infant children with?
|
| Isn't infant formula a solution to a problem that is in large
| part created by infant formula manufacturers?
| daenz wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? I've always been surprised at how
| many families use formula. Do mothers just not breastfeed
| much anymore?
| Dove wrote:
| Nursing is nearly a full time job. When I was doing it with
| a six month old via pumping, I tracked my hours spent one
| week and came up with 30 hours. With another baby, I was
| nursing in the evenings when home from work, and it was
| literally 3-4 hours a night. Every night. And often almost
| a full hour in the morning before work. It varies from baby
| to baby, but it's a brutal time commitment.
|
| Also, when you're nursing full time, you can't leave the
| baby. Ever. Getting a haircut requires significant planning
| because if the baby gets hungry, it is your problem and
| yours alone. If you want to go shopping or see a movie or
| just leave the dang house for _any_ reason at all, if you
| want to do _any_ activity that occupies you for a length of
| time and is hard to interrupt, _you need a baby plan_. And
| for a period of months, when in love with a newborn, this
| seems totally fine and totally worth it. But somewhere on
| the road to a year? Being able to hand a baby to someone to
| watch for an hour or two and _go do things_ is _amazing_.
|
| Don't get me wrong, nursing is a wonderful experience and
| very important for the health of mother and baby. But the
| value diminishes over time. With a preemie, it is downright
| lifesaving. With a newborn it has proven lifelong benefits.
| But somewhere around the time they're eating cheerios and
| licking the floor and snacking on apple juice, and you have
| other things to do, you ask yourself if it's _really_ worth
| what it costs. At least, I did.
|
| Where you come down on the value of breastfeeding vs
| formula really depends a lot on your life circumstances and
| the relative priorities you place on mothering via milk,
| and mothering via other activities. When and where you
| leave off is very personal. Some women want to nurse
| toddlers, and I support that. Some women want to use
| formula from day one, and I'm not crazy about that, but
| life is varied and sometimes circumstances dictate and when
| they do, I'm glad we have the option. In particular, I
| think this is really common after a C-section, which makes
| sense -- mom is recovering from surgery and breastfeeding
| can involve resting a baby on a recovering wound! I'd
| certainly never second guess someone who thought it more
| important to have the energy to be _emotionally_ _present_
| with the baby, even if that meant feeding baby a different
| food than they 'd wish for in a perfect world. Milk has its
| benefits, but having an emotionally healthy mom counts for
| a lot, too. Probably more. And it's a long journey. Trying
| too hard to do everything perfect can result in mental
| health issues for mom, which isn't good for anyone, baby
| included.
|
| Some women transition early, and I support that, some do
| late, and I support that, too. All parents try to do right
| by their children, and for some that looks like laborious
| custom homemade food and for some that looks like
| neighborhoods and education and opportunities. I do think
| we'd be better off as a society if it were more practical
| to nurse for the first year--I think a lot of women would
| choose it if it were easier. But that involves
| understanding it like the full time commitment it is. Can I
| put a year of "full time mom" on my resume? Three times?
| Can I take a year off of work? Is spending a year nursing
| seen as a _normal_ and _honorable_ career choice? That 's
| essentially the ask. Whether the gap is made up by state or
| society or family or whatever, the world would have to look
| pretty different for me to find it a practical option to
| make _such_ a commitment to nursing that formula was
| entirely unnecessary. For some people it 's that important.
| Some would like to, but it's too hard. Some people aren't
| cut out to be full time moms. And sometimes even full time
| moms think it's better to use their energy for other
| things.
| clairity wrote:
| > "Also, when you're nursing full time, you can't leave
| the baby. Ever."
|
| outside of the first few weeks (not months), a healthy
| baby can wait an hour or two to nurse. you certainly
| don't want to constantly deny feeding for hours on end,
| but a couple hours is well within the environment in
| which we've evolved over the past many millenia. our
| bodies are amazingly adaptive and tolerant, even as
| infants. mothers, nursing or not, shouldn't feel any
| guilt for not dedicating every single waking second to
| infants (after the first few weeks). that said, i fully
| support multiple months of paid parental leave (socially
| supported rather than employer supported) for both
| parents to adjust to the new human in their lives.
| Dove wrote:
| Yeah, I suppose I'm overstating it. It would be better to
| say that when you're full time nursing, going and doing
| things requires planning and support.
|
| When I was directly breastfeeding exclusively, stepping
| outside the house for an hour felt crazy and scary.
| You're right that it got easier as the baby got older,
| and I knew the baby wouldn't die, but I wanted to be
| there for him!! Who wants to leave a kid hungry when they
| need you? So from a practical perspective, I rarely did
| anything.
|
| When I was pumping, I worried about supply and timing and
| what I'd left behind and if I'd make it back in time to
| sufficiently support everyone's biology. It was doable
| but I was always planning around it. Better, and now
| hours on end became practical, but the hassle still made
| it hard to want to go out. You're always worrying, if you
| miss your pumping appointment, if that means ultimately
| baby won't get enough. I mean, you know that's not true,
| but you worry. The practical effect for me is that
| something fun and easy that doesn't fit perfectly in the
| schedule -- like seeing a movie -- just doesn't seem
| worth the stress. So you never see movies.
|
| But man, the sheer _freedom_ of being able to tell
| grandma "Here's the baby, here's a box of unlimited
| food" and not think about it. Man. If you want to know
| why people make that call, I'm sure that's a factor.
| That's really what I mean.
| clairity wrote:
| yah, the need to always be planning is definitely a drag,
| and it dampening the deisre to step away is completely
| understandable. it totally makes sense to me that parents
| often choose the hybrid approach (of supplementing with
| formula) because of this.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Check the female workforce statistics. We decided as a
| culture it was more important for women to be working than
| "wasting time" raising and caring for their children.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Not surprising at all in a country with very little to no
| paternity leave. The mother is not with her infant 24/7,
| and the baby has to eat.
| mbbbb wrote:
| Exclusively breastfeeding is very challenging to do while
| working, for one. Even at my megacorp with a dedicated
| space, a hospital grade pump, and 2 hrs a day dedicated
| only to that, it was a substantial hit to supply.
| Considering that most women don't have those amenities and
| support I'm not surprised they don't breastfeed exclusively
| after their mat leave (for most women in the US, 6 weeks
| unpaid)
|
| Not to mention - it can be painful (if I had no option of
| course I would endure pain for my child, but there is no
| shame in looking for something less painful) or the baby
| can not learn to latch (formerly known as "failure to
| thrive" and a driver of infant mortality)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Do mothers just not breastfeed much anymore?
|
| Mothers who can't breastfeed adequately don't have any of
| slaves, paid wetnurses, or children that die of starvation
| as much as they used to.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This is just wrong. A non-insignificant fraction of women
| can't produce milk in high enough quantities to feed infants.
| This is an undisputed fact.
|
| The only alternative to robust infant formula supply is to
| accept pre-modern levels of infant mortality. Period.
| [deleted]
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Wet nurses exist. Period. I know of more than one woman who
| donates breast milk. They both have continued to pump as
| their kids grow to give back to the community.
|
| "Wet nurse" is a phrase for this very reason.
| lumost wrote:
| Wet nurses are extremely expensive, they also introduce a
| variety of challenges in modern times as you must trust a
| stranger to carefully and correctly preserve the milk,
| not dilute it with anything, and be in good health
| without any complicating factors.
|
| When all is said and done, milk can be purchased peer to
| peer at roughly 4x the cost of infant formula or between
| 1 and 2 dollars per oz. Purchasing through a service with
| some notional guarantees on the above concerns increases
| the cost to 5 dollars per oz. A 3-6 month old can consume
| 40+ oz per day.
| dqpb wrote:
| Some mothers want to breastfeed but don't produce enough
| milk.
| zdragnar wrote:
| There are a number of reasons for a mother to choose
| formulas:
|
| - baby has special diet needs
|
| - mother doesn't produce sufficient amount
|
| - mother is on medicine, supplements or drugs that would be
| expressed via breastfeeding
|
| - mother works and preparing / preserving pre-pumped milk
| isn't feasible
|
| - mother is dead
|
| - mother chooses to use formula
|
| Only in the last case is the availability of formula itself
| to blame, and even then the notion that it shouldn't be an
| option is somewhat cruel.
| yakak wrote:
| It seems to me like it could be prescription (though first
| a real health system would be needed) if there is a
| shortage. I mean I think the last one is 80% of the market
| and putting the other 20% of infants at risk.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Not all formula is the same, and since there isn't a
| prescription needed, the only thing holding back new
| entrants is either (a) the market is too small to be
| worth starting up a new company, or (b) the regulatory
| hurdles (as a food item, etc) make starting up a new
| company cost prohibitive compared to what they could make
| selling it.
|
| Shortages of baby formula is pretty rare here in the
| states, and building a business is a costly time
| consuming endeavor- you won't be able to spin one up just
| to make money during the shortage (testing, inspections,
| FDA approval for the labels, etc). That leaves other
| companies who are already running food businesses to
| possibly expand into it, but getting FDA approvals still
| takes time and a lot of money, so you need a longer term
| game plan for keeping it going.
|
| A doctor writing a prescription for it doesn't help you
| get any if there's not any available in significant
| quantities- it's not a one and done thing, it is
| literally all the baby can eat until they've grown enough
| to be weaned off.
| yakak wrote:
| > A doctor writing a prescription for it doesn't help you
| get any if there's not any available in significant
| quantities- it's not a one and done thing, it is
| literally all the baby can eat until they've grown enough
| to be weaned off.
|
| If it is available in any quantity then needing a
| prescription keeps it from being used for infants that
| don't need it. (Market naturally drops but I don't think
| risking the health of many infants who don't need formula
| to keep it cheap is a great ethical move anyway.)
|
| There are infinitely refillable prescriptions and
| nutritional prescriptions, they have an advantage that
| they can be billed to health insurance which is fairer if
| an expensive diet is a medical need.
|
| The overall effects of losing the local market, importing
| for infants that need it and having insurance pay much
| higher costs may well pay for itself if we could measure
| the future health consequences of unnecessary formula
| use.. but the rule of do no harm means we shouldn't try
| to feed kids formula without a medical need.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > If it is available in any quantity then needing a
| prescription keeps it from being used for infants that
| don't need it.
|
| Ah, I didn't realize you meant waving a fiat wand so that
| _everyone_ had to get a prescription for it.
|
| If that were the case, then I imagine we could do the
| same with bottled water, gluten free grains, alcohol,
| vitamin supplements, coffee, CBD, and more, and solve so
| many problems!
|
| Alas, the FDA has certain authority over drugs, and
| certain authority over food. It does _not_ have the same
| authority over both, and infant formula is a food, not a
| drug.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| How exactly is it a problem caused by infant formula
| manufacturers?
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Infant formula makers market their goods aggressively to
| new mothers. The formula makers fully understand that once
| a child is on formula, a mother will soon stop being able
| to create her own milk and the baby will _have_ to use
| formula from then on.
|
| Not every new parent fully understands this, especially in
| places that don't have a lot of marketing dollars spent
| influencing people at one if the most vulnerable times of
| their life.
|
| This can, and does, lead to situations where the mother's
| milk dries up "early" and then formula isn't available and
| the baby dies.
|
| See https://www.ranker.com/list/nestle-baby-formula-
| boycott/meli...
| lumost wrote:
| It's also _incredibly_ common for mothers not to have
| sufficient supply regardless of formula use. This results
| in a negative spiral where the baby won 't be fed enough,
| and the mother isn't able to sleep, resulting in even
| less supply. Formula allows the mother to sleep, and the
| baby to be properly fed, even when they mother wants to
| breast feed.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| See, your problem here is you're assuming the mother is
| the only one feeding a child.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I deliberately said "new parent".
| bee_rider wrote:
| There are lots of crucial goods, right? I don't see how the
| government could stockpile all of them. And infant formula is
| only good for a couple years, right? So it would have to be an
| ongoing project to keep it good. n95s eventually degrade, but I
| believe they've got a much longer shelf-life.
|
| Also, masks become unusually important when there's an
| epidemic, so we wouldn't expect the economy to have capacity to
| deal with that. We should expect that in a well balanced
| economy, the supply of baby formula should basically match the
| demand. It seems to me that instead of government stockpiles
| (since they can't stockpile everything and don't know what will
| be needed) it would make more sense to monitor the market more
| closely and keep tabs on inventory... and, actually, it is
| pretty surprising that they didn't catch this before it became
| an issue.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Stockpile to a point and then regularly auction off things
| that are nearing end of life (or, in the case of baby formula
| that is heavily provided by state programs, just give it to
| the states to distribute).
|
| We have national oil reserves. Having reserves of other
| essential assets seems fine to me, especially in the case
| where there are few substitute goods.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| Why is that necessary when it appears there is sufficient
| global supply and regulations are causing it to be
| unavailable to the US market? The issue isn't a shortage of
| production, as far as I can tell. And even if there were, a
| stockpile only absorbs a temporary shortage. A strong
| industry with many producers is what the government should
| desire, I imagine.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| It makes sense from a national defense perspective to
| have reasonable stockpiles of essential goods.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| I'm not a national defense expert, but it seems to make
| sense to ensure your country can get access to essential
| goods. One possible solution would be stockpiling them.
| Another would be maintaining the capacity either in the
| state or the private sector to acquire or manufacture
| them rapidly. It feels like hindsight 20/20 to say "why
| didn't the government have a stockpile of [thing we had a
| shortage of]".
|
| It appears to me the policy here led to essentially a
| single point of failure or low optionality for the market
| to get the product. Not clear stockpiling is the answer
| to that problem.
| azemetre wrote:
| In our current political climate, people would attack
| this during the good times as wasteful and not a good use
| of money. I agree with you, but we have a party in this
| country that doesn't think good governance is a virtue.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I was actually thinking of something like that as well. If
| nothing else, the cast-offs from a stockpiling program
| could be a nice social welfare program.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > n95s eventually degrade
|
| Only the ones that depend on an electrostatic spray to assist
| filtration.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Apparently all of their rubber bands eventually lose
| elasticity (but it is a very slow process).
| syrrim wrote:
| One good reason for protectionism in this way is to protect from
| international shocks. If there was an event that caused
| international production of formula to scale back (say a volcanic
| eruption), then it would be beneficial to have as large a
| domestic supply as possible. This is achieved by subsidizing
| local production, eg via tarrifs on foreign imports. It would be
| valuable in addition to expressly allow for foreign imports in
| response to shocks like this, but making that the permanent
| regime would have its own risks.
| seibelj wrote:
| All problems are caused by greedy corporations! Throw executives
| in prison! If we just had more government all of this would be
| better /s
| nostromo wrote:
| We need dramatic supply-side improvements to get our way out of
| this inflationary spiral.
|
| We need to unleash America's entrepreneurs to create more stuff
| to soak up this excess money. More housing. Lots more housing.
| More products with fewer roadblocks to bring products to market.
| The fact that it took over a year for American masks to come to
| market, just in time for them to not be needed, in large part
| because of regulation is a sign of how bad things have gotten
| here.
|
| We need more energy too -- wind, solar, nuclear, and yes fossil
| fuels too. (Our current policy of begging Saudi Arabia to provide
| us more oil, when we have plenty in our own backyard makes zero
| strategic sense. Not to mention how high fuel prices are
| enriching our adversaries like Russia.)
| lumost wrote:
| Is it really regulation? Anecdotally this appears to be a
| knowledge/capability problem. We haven't grown domestic
| industry in so long that I honestly don't think many still know
| how to actually _build_.
|
| If you give money to businesses that for the last 50 years have
| simply become experts at dealing with international supply
| chains... You're probably just going to have the money sent
| abroad.
| onphonenow wrote:
| It's surprising how regs slow things down - it's just an
| accumulation.
|
| Southern Cal wanted a desalination plant. Spent a TON of time
| in development. Shot down. Repeat time 100x, kind of crushing
| I think.
| supertrope wrote:
| When the drought is extreme enough government regulations
| will be changed. Like how environmental reviews are being
| shoved to the side to export LNG to Europe.
|
| But before we build extremely expensive desalination, more
| effective and lower cost actions must come first. Reforming
| water rights law to stop insane use it or lose it
| incentives (e.g. flood irrigation of almond trees).
| Renegotiating water treaties. Increasing water efficiency
| in agriculture. Xeriscaping. Higher water prices that will
| hold down demand and provide a self-enforcing incentive to
| reduce waste, leaks, and low value water consumption. And
| better finance water works.
|
| Reduce, reuse, recycle.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The amount of paperwork and approvals even simple businesses
| require to get off the ground is mind boggling. Some make
| sense. Most, from Phoenix's generic municipal business
| licenses to California's foreign entity fees or New York's
| entity publication requirement to Texas's hairdresser
| licensing requirements or many HOAs' aesthetic policies do
| not.
| themitigating wrote:
| Have you researched why those regulations came about?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Have you researched why those regulations came about?_
|
| Yes. Almost all of them stem from before the internet.
| Publication requirements prevented accidental trademark
| infringement and provided public notice. Similarly for
| foreign entity registration. Business licenses linked
| business addresses to the tax registry. Hairdressing
| because many barbers provided shaves, which involves a
| sanitary component.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > 'it took over a year for American masks to come to market,
| just in time for them to not be needed, in large part because
| of regulation'
|
| What it really regulation that was at fault for masks being so
| delayed? The entire suplly chail for meltblown is missing.
|
| There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen than
| in all of North America combined.
|
| A basic masks that an average citizen had to wear to take the
| metro does not even come with any medical certification, what
| regulation was getting in the way, the need to file taxes?
| lupire wrote:
| > There are more tooling engineers in the city of Shenzhen
| than in all of North America combined.
|
| This is because tariffs are not high enough to compensate for
| Chinese workers being paid below US minimum wage.
| daniel-s wrote:
| I think you diagnosed the problem, but not in the way that you
| think.
|
| We have huge price increases because the governments printed
| money for so long. Price increases were always predicted by
| free market economists. You don't make anyone wealthier by
| printing money. You don't build factories, make people smarter
| or increase resources. All it does is redistribute wealth to
| the first people that get to use the new money (banks and
| wealthy elites) and increase prices.
| lupire wrote:
| This isn't really relevant. Either formula buyers have more
| money and so they can afford formula, or they don't and so
| formula would not inflate as much as other products.
|
| Inflation only hurts when some buyers of a scarce good are
| benefiting more from money printing than others. This doesn't
| apply to consumer commodities.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm well aware the cause of inflation is bad monetary policy.
|
| But now we have two options: control inflation by causing a
| severe downturn that will be painful, or control inflation
| with supply-side economics.
|
| We need to match supply and demand -- either by reducing
| demand with a recession, or by increasing the supply of goods
| and services. Increasing the supply side of the equation will
| be better for everyone.
| rilezg wrote:
| This is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of any
| externalities. We lost American manufacturing not because of
| regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global
| corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by
| outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations.
|
| I do not want 'America's entrepreneurs' to start producing
| infant formula without any safeguards. That is recipe for
| disaster.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| > and yes fossil fuels too
|
| It depends on your goals, if you want to absolutely destroy the
| global economy and wealth in 30 years for a short term shot in
| the arm, then sure.
| [deleted]
| tzs wrote:
| > In a well-functioning market, any temporary shortage caused by
| the removal of one company's product from the market would be
| addressed relatively quickly.
|
| Is that actually the case in real life? In a well functioning
| market I'd expect producers to have just enough capacity above
| average demand to cover the normal random fluctuations in their
| market.
|
| I wouldn't expect them to have enough excess capacity to quickly
| make up the temporary loss of a major producer. Also, what about
| logistics? Say some particular plant starts producing say 50%
| more...are they going to be able to quickly find shipping
| capacity to deliver that?
| thayne wrote:
| Or maybe in real life, most markets aren't well functioning.
| mcguire wrote:
| Much of the problem is with families that need a specific
| formula. How would, say, importing different formula from Europe
| help that?
| rilezg wrote:
| This article is a summary of a different article:
| https://capitolism.thedispatch.com/p/americas-infant-formula...
|
| It seems odd that the posted article ignores how WIC contracts
| are distorting the market and encouraging a monopoly and instead
| jumps on over-regulation being the problem. It sure seems like
| those contracts should either not be exclusive or should require
| suppliers to demonstrate supply resiliency in the face of a
| single factory failure.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I was frankly alarmed something like half of kids qualify for
| WIC.
|
| Don't get me wrong, feed em, but why is child poverty so bad in
| the US ?
| supertrope wrote:
| Part of it is the exact federal poverty line depends on the
| family size. An income that's just over the poverty line for
| two adults would be under the line once it's two adults and
| one kid. Something like a third of adults in poverty would
| not be if they were childless. And then of course their
| kid(s) are a statistic.
|
| https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-
| FP...
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I'd argue the poverty line in America is very low compared
| to what it really takes to live.
|
| Most people can't significantly save money, so when you
| have a bad month it's hard to catch up.
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| You have to be poor or very affluent to afford children in
| many American cities. And many of the affluent aren't
| procreating.
| jMyles wrote:
| > And many of the affluent aren't procreating.
|
| Source?
|
| Has the relative, inflation-adjusted average wealth of new
| parents changed substantially?
| [deleted]
| mlom wrote:
| edit, probably being touchy about a misunderstanding, nvm
| Blahah wrote:
| Pretty sure the gp was saying that it's surprising/appaling
| so many people in the US are living in poverty. Not that
| relying on welfare is bad, or that buying food any
| particular way is bad.
| Doubtme wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait
| comments to HN? It's not what this site is for, and it
| destroys what it is for.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| rilezg wrote:
| WIC eligibility can vary by state, but is between 100% and
| 185% of the federal poverty level (I spot-checked a few
| states, and all I saw was 185%). 185% comes to ~$50k per year
| for a family of 4. And most people have children relatively
| young, which usually means they aren't earning a ton of
| money.
|
| This is the sort of program that I'd rather 'too many' people
| be eligible for than exclude anyone who might be helped (it
| is not just about adequate nutrition, but also providing
| information on healthy eating and referrals to health care).
| rhexs wrote:
| Who do you think is coming over the border? The middle class?
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| Two things to know as well. WIC only pays for certain sizes for
| formula[0] purchased at retail because they're afraid that poor
| women will stock up on formula or resell it. Also women have to
| pay part of the cost of the formula for the same reason.
|
| > Many others have simply switched to Enfamil. Increasingly,
| they reach for the 12.4-ounce cans, the only size paid for by
| WIC.
|
| > "I've gone to stores in Long Beach, I've gone to Rolling
| Hills, Carson -- I've gone to Inglewood just to see if I could
| get lucky," said Landers. "If they do have it, it's the larger
| size; it's not the size that's approved."
|
| [0]- https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-13/baby-
| for...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It only seems odd that the article ignores X and emphasises Y
| until you look at where the article is from.
|
| 'Reason' has an ideological hammer, and goshdarnit they'll go
| find some terrible government nails for it, whether that's the
| actual problem or not.
| pstuart wrote:
| A more nuanced take is here:
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/baby-formu...
|
| and here:
|
| https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/monopolies-an...
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| How is this more nuanced than the OP's article? The OP article
| actually _adds_ nuance by expanding on the Atlantic's claim
| that "America's regulatory and trade policy" is largely to
| blame. The Atlantic claims that this "might be the most
| important part of the story."
| dv_dt wrote:
| Well I take issue on the very first line of the Reason
| article "Trade restrictions and over-zealous FDA regulation
| are a big part of the problem, but there's more."
|
| The plant is closed with bacterial infection problems linked
| to the deaths of two infants. That seems the opposite of
| over-zealous FDA regulation.
|
| There are definitely other regulatory issues, but I would
| characterize them as regulatory capture - too little
| regulation going against corporate interests.
|
| Temporary easing of trade restrictions does seem like a good
| thing, but not really permanent easing as I suspect Reason
| would prefer. Permanent easing leads us to even bigger supply
| insecurity risks imho.
| pstuart wrote:
| No mention of the effective monopoly in place -- that a
| single factory getting shut down would have such an impact.
|
| Obviously government policy has failed as well.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Matt Stoller covered that in his BIG newsletter about
| antitrust and monopolies in America.
|
| https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/big-bottle-the-baby-
| formu...
| deeptote wrote:
| Reason calling the government bad is like Uncle Leo in Seinfeld
| calling everyone an anti-semite.
| CPLX wrote:
| The actual problem here, as it is with some many parts of our
| economy, is consolidation and monopoly.
|
| One company, Abbott, controls about half the country's supply,
| and has a stranglehold on distribution:
|
| https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/big-bottle-the-baby-formu...
| pythonic_hell wrote:
| I wish more people would wake up to the impact that monopolies
| have on their economic and wellbeing security.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Legalizing imports would break, or at least put strong pressure
| on, such a monopoly.
| CPLX wrote:
| Maybe. Or maybe we'd then be subject to a bigger more
| international monopoly.
|
| These two issues are loosely related at best.
| zeruch wrote:
| Occasionally Reason gets it right...this is not one of those
| times.
| zeruch wrote:
| [deleted]
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| If you're going to post just "you're wrong" without any
| explanation, you shouldn't be surprised that you get
| downvotes without any explanation.
| zeruch wrote:
| You and I both know that in the lions share of cases of the
| above, the comment gets passed over without any ado. When
| its attached to ANYTHING related to Rand, or Cato or
| Reason, its a fluffer parade of anger.
|
| The short answer then is the same problem Reason has always
| had...it treats any regulation as anathema, and will volley
| the blame anywhere else reflexively. It is occasionally
| correct in that regard, but it's total lack of nuance makes
| it mostly just agit-prop, and for those of us who have read
| Reason since at least the .com era...the miles per gallon
| of ink with the same tropes ad nauseum, are....nauseating.
|
| Happy now?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You ever stop to consider that maybe you're the problem, and
| it actually has very little to do with your ideology
| zeruch wrote:
| Would you like to borrow a mirror? You clearly appear to
| want everyone else to and not bother yourself.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Classic comeback! Sometimes I'm stubborn too though, I
| get it.
| programmarchy wrote:
| All you've done is offer a contradiction and an ad hom, so
| why not bring a more substantial argument to the table for
| discussion.
| avs733 wrote:
| Because they have reason (magazine) on their side
| programmarchy wrote:
| Maybe I misunderstood but pretty sure they're saying the
| Reason article got it wrong. I'd like to hear why, and
| I'm likely to be sympathetic to an opposing view.
|
| For example, I disagree with Reason that we should loosen
| FDA rules on something as critical as baby formula, but
| lowering tariffs on imports doesn't seem like a terrible
| idea. On the other side, I think tariffs play an
| important role in protecting domestic industry that are
| vital to national security. So we don't want Abbott to
| get shut down, but they do need to be severely punished.
| zeruch wrote:
| You have distilled a better framework in two sentences
| than Reason could have in two issues of features.
|
| Well done.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| If baby formula is vital to national security, can you
| name anything that _isn 't_ also vital?
| programmarchy wrote:
| Sure, any luxury good.
| Animats wrote:
| Reason missed the key point. Well over half of US infant formula
| is paid for by welfare programs. Those have per-state monopolies
| awarded by competitive bidding. So it's not an ordinary consumer
| product.[1]
|
| [1] https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/39616/PDF
| samsonradu wrote:
| It's all explained here:
| https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/big-bottle-the-baby-formu...
| [deleted]
| ConceptJunkie wrote:
| Seems to me that still falls under the umbrella of "bad
| government policy". So, you could say bad government policy
| doesn't explain the whole problem. There's also bad government
| policy.
| lupire wrote:
| This is Reason. Ther good government policy would be doing
| nothing, which wouldn't help poor families get formula
| either.
|
| There's a case to be made about fine-tuning things in some
| ways as the article suggests, but it's still gross to frame
| this under the "government is bad" banner as Reason does.
|
| This concern is especially relevant in the baby formula
| space, where Nestle killed thousands of babies by pushing
| their mothers off breast milk onto unreliably supplied
| formula.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| How does that affect retailers being unable to get supply?
| cperciva wrote:
| It increases demand for that particular brand, but
| manufacturers don't want to invest in increasing their
| production levels in case they don't win the contract for the
| next round.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| So its not all government's fault
| mcguire wrote:
| It's always the government's fault.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Even if the government was not involved, it was
| government's fault for not being involved.
|
| Just look at the sister thread 'why didn't government
| stockpile my freemarket products for me'
| daenz wrote:
| >So while you might think formula from Germany or The Netherlands
| is safe enough for your child (formula available in Europe tends
| to meet or exceed the FDA's nutritional requirements, but not the
| labeling requirements.) the FDA will not let you have it because
| it has not reviewed and approved the label or inspected the
| production facilities overseas. Reasonable people can debate
| whether this is a reasonable policy in normal times, but in the
| current mess this sort of rule undermines the health and
| development of the infants the FDA purports to protect.
|
| Is this even a debate about whether or not it is a reasonable
| policy? Why would you allow _uninspected_ products to feed your
| most vulnerable population? Now, I understand the nuance of
| "well we're in a shortage, so we should allow it temporarily."
| But think about it from a security perspective: you'd still be
| exposing babies to uninspected food products. Any America-hating
| entity could capitalize on this attack vector, if they knew we
| would bypass our security controls. Is it likely? I don't know,
| but I do know that suspending your security in response to a
| crisis is dangerous.
| aiisahik wrote:
| Why would european formula need to be inspected by US officials
| if it was good enough for the European parents? Shouldn't
| parents be able to make their own decisions here rather than be
| beholden by government rules?
| devman0 wrote:
| 21 USC 350a is probably why, there are requirements for
| audits and inspections in there that the FDA cannot just set
| aside with an emergency rule making process since they are
| statutory.
| daenz wrote:
| >if it was good enough for the European parents
|
| That's an assumption based on the fact that it isn't
| inspected. You don't know that you're getting the same
| product if you don't inspect the facilities where the product
| is produced. That's trusting, but not verifying. You need to
| verify something like this.
|
| >Shouldn't parents be able to make their own decisions here
| rather than be beholden by government rules?
|
| Domestically yes, but importing foreign uninspected baby
| products is a national security issue.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Why would european formula need to be inspected by US
| officials if it was good enough for the European parents?
|
| Because that's how things work??
|
| The default position for any government regulatory body is to
| not delegate its authority to regulate to a counterpart in
| another region/country. Sometimes there are bilateral
| agreements where each regulatory body recognizes the
| judgments of the other, but those are few and far between.
|
| American chicken is perfectly safe to consume, but you would
| not be allowed to sell it in the European market.
| novok wrote:
| "Because that's how things work??" is not a good reason
| when it's arbitrary policy, it's just a cause. "Would"
| implies why, or underlying reasons, saying we should judge
| them as valid or not, and he is rightfully judging it as
| wrong.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Because that 's how things work??_
|
| You misspelled "because the US has stupid regulations that
| are more concerned with covering the asses of the
| regulators than with actually protecting consumers".
|
| _> American chicken is perfectly safe to consume, but you
| would not be allowed to sell it in the European market._
|
| As I understand it, the reason US chicken is not saleable
| in European markets is that European countries do _not_
| agree that US chicken is "perfectly safe to consume"
| because of the way it is produced (IIRC chemical washing in
| the US was a key issue).
|
| There is no such disagreement about the infant formula that
| is the subject of this article; the FDA is not saying it's
| not safe, just that it's not labeled the way the FDA wants
| it to be labeled--even though everybody knows it meets
| safety standards at least as stringent as the FDAs and
| nobody needs the labels to tell them that.
| bumby wrote:
| Can you provide where the FDA has said European formulas
| are perfectly adequate? A cursory search showed instances
| where European formulas were pulled because they were
| nutritionally deficient by FDA standards.
|
| Also keep in mind that while on its surface "nutritional
| labels" may seem like like superficial reason to ban
| something, it's the same rational for banning formula
| from China. Labeling is important for quality control and
| verification. ("Verification" defined in the quality
| engineering sense of "it is what it says it is".)
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Can you provide where the FDA has said European
| formulas are perfectly adequate?_
|
| I didn't claim that the FDA said that. All I said was
| that the FDA's stated reason for prohibiting European
| formulas in the US has nothing to do with safety
| standards, only with labeling. The FDA, as far as I know,
| has not made any statement one way or the other about the
| safety standards themselves, but as the article notes,
| the European ones in this respect are at least as
| stringent as the FDA's.
| daenz wrote:
| >only with labeling
|
| Not according to the OP's link though:
|
| >the FDA will not let you have it because it has not
| reviewed and approved the label _or inspected the
| production facilities overseas._
|
| Emphasis mine.
| devman0 wrote:
| Is this something that the FDA even has discretion of or
| are there statutory requirements for labeling infant
| formula in the US?
|
| EDIT: In response to my own question there are statutory
| requirements listed in 21 USC 350a.
| hackernewds wrote:
| if you review, you have refuted your first response with
| your second response.
| pdonis wrote:
| How so?
| liuliu wrote:
| Other than sibling comments, I want to provide another
| counter-point (in this case, I have limited knowledge to say
| whether trusting European inspectors right or wrong):
|
| EASA heavily rely on FAA for 737-Max's initial certification
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_certification#I
| ...), many now believes if it is done differently, the issue
| can be discovered earlier.
|
| Purdue Pharma insists on compromising Germany for OxyContin's
| classification as uncontrolled drug based on the premise that
| if Germany approves it (even later retract), it will enable
| other Euro-zone countries to classify OxyContin as
| uncontrolled drug as well.
| (https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/21/purdue-pharma-richard-
| sa...)
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, and there is a history of unscrupulous producers putting
| all kinds of garbage into infant formula. Who is going to
| complain? Not the babies. That's why it is one of the most
| regulated food products. It's almost like a pharmaceutical
| product. And which countries are safe enough? Germany? UK?
| France? Probably. Estonia? Romania? Hungary? Do we really think
| that there are uniform standards and inspections in all these
| places?
| jotm wrote:
| Everything made in China is cheap garbage /s
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Everything? No. Milk that I'd feed my baby? I wouldn't risk
| it, considering China has had multiple scandals around
| tainted powdered milk.
| willmadden wrote:
| From China and countries where there is no recourse, not from
| Europe.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > Do we really think that there are uniform standards and
| inspections in all these places?
|
| Yes, there are.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/labelling-and-
| nutrition/spe...
| sacrosancty wrote:
| What does "inspected" mean to you in this context that makes it
| so obvious that it's essential?
|
| And essential for Americans but not Germans??
| daenz wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand your question, can you rephrase it
| please?
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Germany clearly inspected the formula. Clearly baby formula
| imported from Germany is still inspected. The only
| distinction is it's inspected by Germany instead of
| American inspectors.
|
| This would be as insane as Florida insisting that baby
| formula can only be sold in Florida if it was inspected in
| Florida. Baby formula inspected in New York cannot be sold,
| even though it was inspected.
| comrh wrote:
| Florida and New York have come together and agreed on
| labeling and inspection. There's nothing stopping the US
| and Germany from doing the same.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > There's nothing stopping the US and Germany from doing
| the same.
|
| Great. So we should do that, right? You agree that Biden
| should sign an executive order saying any infant formula
| approved by the EU is legal to sell in the United States.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Should we do the same for other nations? Is Chinese baby
| formula safe? If not, by what metric do we decide which
| nations' formula is sufficiently safe?
| comrh wrote:
| I would support standardizing labeling and inspection
| requirements with the EU. I don't support more half
| measure executive orders that expand the executive
| branch's power because Congress is too broken to do
| anything... but I digress.
| ggreer wrote:
| Florida & New York "agree" because they're both governed
| by the FDA. Even if a state wanted to import German baby
| formula, the federal government would not allow it.
| [deleted]
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Yeah, it blows my mind the whole general push of, "Parents know
| best". Hell no they don't! They're not experts on anything, how
| in the everloving fuck would _any_ parent be qualified to
| determine if a specific formula brand is "good enough" for
| their child?
|
| I would bet 90%+ of parents could not tell apart formula from
| formula cut with 10% fentanyl. Parents do _not_ know best.
| dahfizz wrote:
| It seems perfectly reasonable to set up some sort of FDA trade
| alliance. We decide we trust the European standards bodies for
| products X,Y,Z, and they trust out standards.
|
| You don't have to take a driver's test in every state when
| driving across country. We have a precedent for intra
| government reciprocal licensing.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Cool, then inspect batches and allow them in depending on the
| results.
|
| It should be doable. Inspecting facilities makes sense if you
| want to import continuously without much worry.
|
| Still, that should also be doable given enough time.
| Vladimof wrote:
| They don't inspect most foods though... look at all the
| mislabeled fish in grocery stores and worst, restaurants...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/07/health/fish-mislabeling-inves...
| rhino369 wrote:
| Because German inspectors aren't appreciably worse than US
| inspectors? (and probably more stringent).
|
| If you took your baby on vacation, you wouldn't starve them
| until you got back right?!? Same logic here.
| [deleted]
| VictorPath wrote:
| Reason is correct that tariffs on Canada, pushed by Abbott,
| helped exacerbate the baby formula problem.
|
| This is what happens when heirs and corporations gain too much
| power. When they are not responsive to working people or the
| government. Not only are they unresponsive to the government,
| they buy the government, and get rulings like Citizens United to
| buy the government even more.
|
| All of this is the result of what Reason has been pushing
| forever. They wanted to prevent government from dealing with
| Abbott, and the result is these tariffs and the baby formula
| breakdown. The market is incapable of working due to the policies
| of Reason. It's like the bread shortages in the USSR after the
| failure of Khruschev's Virgin Lands program. Different mechanisms
| but same result.
| Gunax wrote:
| Well maybe you should just ban Reason magazine then. Afterall,
| they don't have 1st amendment protection since 'Reason' is
| owned by a foundation, and not a person.
| pjscott wrote:
| The government has, in fact, been "dealing with Abbot" --
| specifically, by imposing anti-competitive tariffs and locking
| out both foreign and domestic competition. You want them to do
| more of that? Because, empirically, that's the kind of thing
| governments tend to do all the time. (See also: regulatory
| capture and the idea of "concentrated benefits and diffuse
| costs" in public choice theory.)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Yeah, I think some people/groups like Reason often see
| government as mostly ineffective and then say we should give
| them less money, which can make them more ineffective, and then
| they say they're even more ineffective so we should give less
| money, so on and so forth. I was reading elsewhere that
| stronger FDA regulation and enforcement could help fix issues
| like this one with the baby formula yet many libertarian
| perspectives don't seem to want to give more power to the
| government. I don't know.
| _3u10 wrote:
| The govt isn't ineffective it's very effective at making the
| free market ineffective which is what the reason crowd wants
| to defund.
|
| I live in South America, taxes are 10% and there's no
| shortage of formula.
| mlom wrote:
| people in this thread seriously seem to think there's some
| meaningful distinction between the bank notes that they collect
| at their bullshit jobs and wic coupons for feeding children
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| The issue here is that the FDA and Abbot didn't treat it as an
| emergency when the Abbot facility was forced to close in the
| first place. Had they acted as if it was an emergency, they would
| have mobilized all available resources to clean and disinfect the
| facility, replace the faulty milk drying equipment, and get the
| facility back up and running. Here we are, months later and it's
| now an emergency. Sure, importing from other countries will help,
| but like toilet paper, it's a product that has a pretty
| consistent demand and there isn't a lot of surge capacity out
| there, even in other countries, so we really need to get the
| facility back online.
|
| The issue isn't bad government policy - infant formula is
| strictly regulated for very good reasons, it's a lack of urgency
| from the government and private sector to make sure a medically
| critical product is available.
|
| Also, of course, we shouldn't have let such a critical product
| mostly be made by 3 companies, but that's another rant.
| rilezg wrote:
| Although the linked article does not address it, the FDA is
| certainly working to mitigate any fallout from the plant
| closure. Much of the complexity is that WIC is administrated at
| the state level, so the FDA must work with each state
| individually to address the shortage.
|
| Of particular note: >more infant formula has been produced in
| the last four weeks than in the four weeks that preceded the
| recall, despite one of the largest infant formula production
| facilities in the country being offline during that time.
|
| https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/05/13/usda-co...
| bko wrote:
| > infant formula is strictly regulated for very good reasons
|
| > Also, of course, we shouldn't have let such a critical
| product mostly be made by 3 companies, but that's another rant.
|
| Do you think these two are related?
| WalterBright wrote:
| WSJ has an article on it, too:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-made-the-baby-formula-short...
|
| TL,DR: government manipulation of the market caused the shortage
| vondur wrote:
| Can't congress just make an emergency exemption and possibly
| start importing formula from Europe? Apparently customs seize
| shipments that people attempt to purchase directly from Europe.
| taf2 wrote:
| A president is usually better at doing this via executive
| orders... Simply because it's one president who has to sign the
| order vs many congressman who have to agree to pass an act...
| So it's unclear why this has not happened...
| throwaway48375 wrote:
| Don't worry they've formed a committee to look into maybe
| doing something about this. Meanwhile babies are starving. I
| wish I were joking.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Don't worry they've formed a committee to look into maybe
| doing something about this.
|
| Yes. You have to 'form a committee' to understand the
| problem, instead of just winging it.
| throwaway48375 wrote:
| Is there a good reason why it takes that committee over a
| week just to meet? Why can't they just schedule a zoom
| conference and then issue an executive order the same
| day? It's not like starving babies are a time critical
| issue like missiles for Ukraine or something.
| Lendal wrote:
| What is it specifically about European countries that makes
| inspection of their foods unnecessary, but foods from other
| continents does need inspection first?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Is this a real question? They have higher food standards,
| regulation, and inspection regime than the US does itself.
| Other countries are a mishmash, but I'd imagine at least
| Canada/Australia/UK/etc would meet or exceed the bar too.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Is that really true? Unless I'm missing something, American
| food standards and regulations are usually just as good as
| europe/canada/UK's , if not better. If anything I'm a bit
| puzzled by your claim, considering just how many food
| related scandals europe has had in the past few decades.
| Fake olive oil, horse meat, poison tainted wine, mad cow
| disease... and that's not even getting into the mishmash of
| "cultural/local exceptions" to food regulations (which are
| a good thing, but still undermine your point!).
|
| But maybe I'm wrong, it's just that I've never heard any
| expert or anyone else really claim that the USDA/FDA are
| _too_ lenient, more so than their europeans /CANZUK
| counterparts. It's usually the opposite actually!
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| The FDA has been trying to kill us for over two years now. At the
| beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, recall how they wouldn't
| allow anyone to do their own testing - the only test allowed was
| a known-broken test from the CDC. More recently they dragged
| their feet for purely political reasons on approval of Paxlovid.
| And still going on now is the approval of vaccinations for small
| children, where their reasoning for holding approval has nothing
| to do with safety or efficacy, but something stupid about causing
| confusion when a second vaccine hasn't yet been approved.
|
| The FDA has demonstrated that their only concern is avoiding
| down-side risk, and are completely incapable of evaluating up-
| side risk: what's the danger to the American public of NOT having
| access to a given treatment.
|
| This agency seems beyond reform. It needs to be gutted and
| completely redesigned from the ground up.
| jostmey wrote:
| +1
| cafard wrote:
| "This whole scheme, done under the guise of welfare, is
| essentially a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the
| poor, done by enriching the baby formula cartel."
|
| I'm not sure how transferring wealth from the middle class to the
| poor would be "under the guise of welfare" rather than "welfare".
| No, enriching the cartel is not good.
| Sebguer wrote:
| Did the linked article change? You seem to be quoting:
| https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/big-bottle-the-baby-formu...
| which is not the article here, nor linked in the article as far
| as I can tell.
| samsonradu wrote:
| Matt Stroller writes a very good newsletter[1] on monopolies and
| antitrust matters. Last article touched this exact topic.
|
| [1] https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/big-bottle-the-baby-
| formu...
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| I made some comments on another thread here on HN about the
| Infant Formula Shortage, and how the individuals strains of
| Cronobacter sakazakii bacteria from the unfortunately deceased
| infants did not match the strains of Cronobacter sakazakii
| bacteria found at the food production facility, did not match
| each other, but, the baby food production facility was shut down
| anyways. [1]
|
| EDITED.
|
| [1] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2022/04/five-strains-of-
| bacte...
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm not sure why you think that matters? Even if its not
| directly causal, the plants should not have bacteria of that
| sort.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Exactly. The reason the plant was shut down was because it
| had poor sanitation.
|
| What probably happened: company got the initial reports of
| deaths, did a one-off sanitation effort but didn't address
| systemic hygiene/sanitation issues, and the plant ended up
| with contamination again.
| WalterGR wrote:
| > However, it is clear there is a HN downvote brigade out in
| force patrolling the comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Gunax wrote:
| I don't think it's unreasonable to close it. I don't know
| anything about this bacteria, but is it normal to find it in
| the formula?
|
| If another child died someone would have to explain 'well we
| let it open because whole we found bacteria in the product, it
| was not exactly the same bacteria that killed the other kids'.
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