"Today, President Biden is announcing that his Administration has arranged the third Operation Fly Formula flight for the first shipment of Kendamil infant formula entering the United States. United Airlines has agreed to transport Kendamil formula free of charge from Heathrow Airport in London to multiple airports across the country over a three-week period," the White House said in a press release.
United Airlines will transport about 3.7 million eight-ounce bottles with the Kendamil formula for infants, including 3.2 million bottles of Kendamil Classic Stage 1 and 540,000 bottles of Kendamil Organic, the release said.
On 17 February, Abbott Nutrition, the largest infant formula manufacturer in the country, initiated a voluntary recall of several lines of powdered formula. This came after concerns about bacterial contamination at Abbott’s facility I the state of Michigan after four infants fell ill and two died.
The Biden administration announced two previous Operation Fly Formula actions on 19 May and 23 May. The first mission resulted in at least 1.5 million eight-ounce bottles of infant formula being transported from Switzerland to the US state of Indiana to help alleviate shortages. The same number of bottles was delivered to the US state of Pennsylvania from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany during the second mission.
The Biden administration has also invoked the Defense Production Act to boost infant formula production.