The fragility of the infant formula market is being tested again — this time by legal fights over safety labeling.
Why it matters: Utah has one of the nation's highest fertility rates, with more than 61 live births per 1,000 women ages 15-44, per the CDC.
That means we have a lot of babies.
The big picture: Two and a half years after supply chain issues and a recall led to a nationwide formula shortage, the only two manufacturers of premature infant formula are threatening to exit amid a flurry of lawsuits from families whose infants got sick or died after taking one of these formulas.
Zoom in: At issue is a bowel disease called necrotizing enterocolitis that mostly affects premature babies. Abbott, which makes Similac, and Reckitt Benckiser, which makes Enfamil, are facing hundreds of lawsuits alleging they failed to warn parents about the risks on product labels.
Reckitt Benckiser — owner of Mead Johnson, which was hit with its own $6o million judgment in the spring — has said it's considering its options. That includes a potential sale of its formula business, Bloomberg reported this week.
Meanwhile, Abbott CEO Robert Ford told Axios "the industry is at risk."
The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned that the litigation could jeopardize the availability of the formulas, adding necrotizing enterocolitis has multiple causes and that practitioners don't exactly know how to prevent it.
