Baby formula shortage: Operation Fly Formula brings first imported shipment to Indianapolis

Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani joins the Live show to discuss the 70,000 pounds of baby formula that has just been imported, investigations into baby formula producers, and the efficacy data on Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for children.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: Well, a military plane carrying 78,000 pounds of infant formula landing in Indianapolis this weekend, the first formula imported under President Biden's Operation Fly Formula Project. Anjalee Khemlani joins us now for more on this. And Anjalee, this is just the first step here in addressing this nationwide crisis.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right. It's the first step. It's the first flight coming in, especially, importing Nestlé's products. So we know that first flight carrying 132 pallets of the alpha amino product just arrived from Europe. We also are expecting 114 pallets of Gerber's Goodstart Extensive HA coming in soon. And that total effort will add about 1.5 million 8-ounce bottle equivalent to the market of Nestlé's product. Meanwhile, we know that the Defense Production Act, of course, has been invoked, and it's being utilized to prioritize supplies for Abbott and Reckitt Benckiser, which is a parent company of formula maker, Mead Johnson, according to the White House.

All of this, of course, you remember, is a result of Abbott having to shut down its plant in Michigan in February. That is set to start soon, but we don't have this specific timeline just yet on that. We know that it has already restarted a little bit. So we're seeing the results of that. We know that, of course, all of this has triggered a number of investigations, both here in the House, as well as across different governments. We know that the House Energy and Commerce Committee, their Oversight Subcommittee, is set to meet on Wednesday.

And that is going to include FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, as well as two other FDA officials. And we're also going to see some company officials come out. And that's going to include Abbott, Reckitt Benckiser, as well as the Gerber/Nestlé officials. So we're going to hear from all of them, you know, about how this shortage came to be and what can be done to sort of diversify what we know has been really half of the-- or rather, the entire US market of baby formula, with four companies in the lead. And that has been the concern, especially for those beneficiaries on WIC, the Women, Infants, and Children, that's been really half of the US market. And so, that's where a lot of this government concern is coming from.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, certainly, and of course, I think a lot of those executives should expect tough questions from some of the lawmakers later this week. Anjalee, since we have you, we also want to bring up another story that I know you're tracking when it comes to the COVID vaccine. There are some new data out today from Pfizer just about how effective it was in young children. What did we learn?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right. So we know that Pfizer just announced that they have an effective vaccine against those kids five and under. 80% is their preliminary number, but we're still waiting. The full data, it could come out a little bit lower. And that is all from a phase III trial that was done while Omicron was circulating. So we know that those results are results of watching this vaccine under the Omicron specific variant. And that's really important for what happens in the fall. So we've got to keep an eye on that.

Meanwhile, we know that the FDA, as a result, announced, finally, a date for that meeting for their advisory committee to hear both Pfizer and Moderna's under five, under six vaccine. And that is June 15, so mark your calendars. That's the date we're going to hear. We also do know that the FDA is going to be looking at Moderna's other vaccines. They have yet to be authorized for 6 through 17-year-olds. And that's going to take place the day before. So all of that really on the table right now.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, hopefully, we'll get some good news there. As the mother of two children under the age of five, it's a date that I am certainly looking forward to. All right, Anjalee Khemlani, thanks so much.