A critical shortage of powdered infant formula revealed significant challenges in the supply, market competition and regulation of formula in the United States, according to a new report reviewed and co-authored by Cornell researchers.

The consensus study report, mandated by Congress and published July 25 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, found that resiliency planning across the baby formula sector is needed to reduce the likelihood of a supply-chain disruption and to adequately protect the formula supply from such disruptions, especially for the most vulnerable.

The committee concluded that the Food and Drug Administration could use its authority to require infant formula manufacturers to develop redundancy risk management plans to further safeguard against disruptions. It also suggested that messaging to parents and caregivers about formula should be streamlined, and identified the relatively high use of infant formula in the U.S. as potentially heightening the effects of a shortage, with breastfeeding as a possible buffer in future shortages.

"The committee's work is noteworthy because it used a vulnerability framework, previously used only for the study of drugs, to identify factors that needed to be addressed," said Kathleen Rasmussen, professor emerita in the College of Human Ecology, who was among the co-authors of the report along with reviewer Angela Odoms-Young, the Nancy Schlegel Meinig Associate Professor of Maternal and Child Nutrition in the College of Human Ecology and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The federal government began an investigation in 2022 after four American babies fell ill, two fatally, from a Cronobacter sakazakii bacterial infection after drinking powdered formula manufactured at an Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan. The company voluntarily recalled 5 million units of powdered formula and closed the plant for five months to address problems identified by the FDA, sparking a nationwide shortage and skyrocketing prices.

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