Aljazeera
A military cargo plane carrying the first shipment of infant formula, weighing 35 tonnes (77,000 pounds), has landed in Indianapolis as part of the Biden administration’s “Operation Fly Formula” to import the product from Europe and address a critical shortage in the United States.
It is the first of several flights from Europe carrying infant formula, made for children who have allergic reactions to protein and cow milk, expected this weekend to relieve the deepening shortage in the US due to the closure of the nation’s largest domestic manufacturing plant in Michigan in February over safety issues.
The flights were authorised after US President Joe Biden invoked the Defence Production Act.
The secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), who was in Indianapolis to greet the arrival of the first shipment, said this is only going to last for about a week, feeding some 27,000 children in need, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, speaking from Washington DC, said.
“This is only about one-third of the total supply to be delivered from Europe into the US. The FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] is also dropping some importation restrictions to make this happen quickly,” she said.
“The Biden administration is hoping that it’s good publicity, showing that they are using everything they can, including the military, to address the acute problem…
