Tonight, we want to begin with the crisis many say shouldn’t be happening here in the United States of America. A struggle for parents to get baby formula. We learned today that the White House is now scrambling to find a solution to the country’s worsening shortage. President B spoke earlier with retailers and manufactures and is trying to import more supplies from other countries. Nationwide, parents are doing whatever is takes to feed their babies. Message board, social media, even offering swap formulas. We’re hearing stories from moms in Texas today, who usually get formula for free from social services say they’ve been out of stock for months. In eight states and here in D.C. more than fifty percent of all formula products were out of stocks. And in additional twenty-eight states have stocks shortages of more than forty percent. Doctors and healthcare workers are urging parents to contact food banks or physician’s offices. And the big warning tonight, do not water down formula to stretch supplies.

For nineteen-year-old J.O from Houston, getting baby formula require a three-hour drive to Austin. O paid a hundred and twenty dollars for three cans of her six-month-old daughter. She is among the seventy-five percent of American parents who rely on some formula for their babies. The shortage intensified earlier this year when Abbot nutrition recalled three of its top selling formulas after four babies became ill with bacterial infections. That prompted the shutdown of its largest plant in Michigan. With empty shelves, parents are looking online only to find eye-popping price-gouging in some cases. These twenty-seven ounces can of specialty formula usually costs around forty dollars, it’s now going a hundred and twenty-nine dollars. The search is so widespread that social media groups have been created to connect people with extra formula with those in need. Pediatricians like Northwestern University Dr. J in Chicago are warning parents not to water down formula or follow recipes to make homemade formulas which are dangerous. Abbott, which is based here in Chicago says its plant could start back up within two weeks, but then it’ll take up two months for new product to land on store shelves. In the meantime, the company is flying an extra formula from its FDA registered plant in Ireland to help with supply.

Well, here in the nation’s capital, an escalation from the Congressional committee investigating what happened on Jan.6th, and all coming just weeks before the first televised public hearing. After most Republicans have refused to cooperate, the committee took extraordinarily rare step of issuing subpoenas to some of their Republican colleagues.