Unsanitary Practices Persist at Baby Formula Factory Whose Shutdown Led to Mass Shortages, Workers Say
Source: ProPublica
Unsanitary Practices Persist at Baby Formula Factory Whose Shutdown Led to Mass Shortages, Workers Say
by Heather Vogell
April 4, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Reporting Highlights
* Unsanitary Conditions: Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Laboratories facility is engaging in unsanitary practices.
* Cardboard Funnel: In one case, workers said an employee used a piece of cardboard from a trash bin to funnel coconut oil, a formula ingredient, into a tank during production.
* Federal Response: One worker complained to the FDA, but it’s unclear how the agency will respond. The Trump administration recently cut 3,500 jobs at the FDA in a mass layoff.
Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Laboratories facility is engaging in unsanitary practices similar to those that led it to temporarily shut down just three years ago, sparking a nationwide formula shortage. ... Current and former employees told ProPublica that they have seen the plant in Sturgis, Michigan, take shortcuts when cleaning manufacturing equipment and testing for microbes. The employees said leaks in the factory are sometimes not fixed, a dangerous problem that can promote bacterial growth. They also said workers at the facility do not always take required swabs to check for pathogens while performing maintenance during production. Supervisors have urged workers to increase production and have retaliated against workers who complained about problems, the employees said.
One worker complained to the Food and Drug Administration in February, saying the plant has experienced “persistent leaks” and “unaddressed contamination issues,” according to correspondence between the worker and the agency viewed by ProPublica. Water and chemicals have pooled on the floor, the worker said. In one spot, white sweetener oozed from a pipe and formed a pile like a stalagmite on top of a tank used for blending, the employee said.
The complaints come as the Trump administration is dismantling wide swaths of the federal government — including conducting mass layoffs at the FDA — and filling some key regulatory positions with industry-friendly voices. The new head of the FDA division that oversees baby formula is a corporate lawyer who previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit.
The workers ProPublica spoke to said they did not want to be named because they feared repercussions from Abbott management, but they felt compelled to speak up out of concern that a baby who drank formula made at the plant would fall ill.
{snip}
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/baby-formula-abbot-sturgis-michigan-shortages-unsanitary-conditions-workers-say
= new reply since forum marked as read
