DeLauro Applauds HHS Office of Inspector General for Announcing Investigation into Food and Drug Administration's Handling of Infant Formula Safety Concerns at Abbott Facility

Statement

Congresswoman DeLauro, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, today released the following statement following an announcement that the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General would investigate the Food and Drug Administration's response to contamination at an Abbott Facility responsible for producing infant formula.
"When Abbott announced their voluntary recall of infant formula in February, I immediately wrote to the HHS Office of Inspect General requesting an investigation into whether the Food and Drug administration took prompt and appropriate action in response to the recall. Given subsequent revelations, it is clear that the FDA dropped the ball -- dragging their feet to responding to damning allegations of substandard practices and fraud delivered by a credible whistleblower.

"Let me be clear -- we will get to the bottom of what went wrong and we will not allow anyone to skirt accountability. I commend the OIG for taking this critical step to get answers as to why this unreasonable delay was allowed to occur -- especially when a product we feed to our babies was at the center of allegations of wrongdoing. I hope the OIG moves speedily to uncover answers so that we can prevent this crisis from potentially happening again."

On March 3, 2022, House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), Christi A. Grimm calling for an investigation into whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took prompt, appropriate, and effective action leading to the recall involving infant formula produced by Abbott Nutrition.

On June 2, 2022 the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspect General announced they would determine whether FDA followed the inspections and recall requirements in accordable with Federal law.

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