Operation Fly Formula Set to Deliver 100 Million Bottles in 100 Days

     Those blaming President Biden for the infant formula shortage are among the worst of the worst human beings on the planet or the most idiotic idiots in the United States of America, which is saying a lot. The Abbott Infant Formula Company's Michigan plant was closed down in February after at least 10 infants were killed and hundreds more injured by a bacterial outbreak in the facility. If any other facility under FDA jurisdiction had seen the same thing happen, the FDA would have had the same response. The idea that the facility being shut down was "government overreach" is insane, as it implies (or, in some cases, people have directly declared) that dozens or hundreds more infants should be allowed to die, an acceptable cost of free market capitalism. I also find it funny that the people who claim to support small government are the same ones blasting the government for not doing enough. The "small government" argument is a farce; they want a hands-off government when it suits them but the government to pull every lever to save their asses when there's a crisis.

     As a matter of fact, President Biden has done quite a bit to alleviate this pressure in the prior and coming months and ensure a viable solution for the future. President Biden has used the Defense Production Act more aggressively than any president in U.S. history: to bolster clean energy, to fight wildfires, to produce PPE and other equipment necessary to combat COVID, and: to bolster the domestic manufacturing of baby formula. Aside from that, he has issued a consent decree allowing Abbott to reopen if certain safety criteria are met and sought to ensure the long-term stability of America's baby formula market by expanding national and international competition.

     My personal favorite, however, is Operation Fly Formula, a campaign utilizing the military to bring in shipments of infant formula to the United States. Since its launch in May, I have been keeping track of Operation Fly Formula. Over the course of two months, 16 flights have delivered exactly 56,150,000 bottles across the nation, especially in the Midwest, where the shortage is the worst. That's an average of 3.51 million bottles per flight. The first two flights were both for one single shipment of 1.5 million bottles; since then, however, things have picked up. While the smallest flight, that ordered on June 15th, brought 550,000 bottles, the largest (exactly one week later) brought 16 million bottles. 

     It's also an average of one million bottles a day between May 19th and July 14th. During his first 100 days, President Biden set a goal of distributing 100 million COVID-19 vaccines. He far surpassed that goal, reaching nearly 250 million in that amount of time and nearly 600 million in the time since he took office. Now, in 2022, President Biden is on track to deliver 100 million bottles of baby formula in 100 days via Operation Fly Formula alone. That's leadership.