Okay, I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that Biden is somehow responsible for the baby formula shortage. You’re looking at the wrong president.
I’ve attached a picture of the man responsible below.
It’s a fun picture of Trump with some other suits surrounded by piles of paper cutting a ribbon with a gold pair of scissors. This was to represent cutting regulations. This was the point where everyone who’s ever worked in a lab started screaming.
See, those regulations weren’t there because OSHA agents were bored and wanted to slap fines on people. They’re there because people got hurt.
These were laws that said don’t put workers around radioactive materials without hazmat suits–caused by the Radium Girls ingesting radium daily and daily. Don’t leave meat out for hours on end and don’t just pick maggots off–Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is about the meat packing industry and how unsanitary it was. Workers have to wear helmets where falling is a risky–helmets reduced death and paralysis. Use vents and fume hoods to move gases away from workers–look at all the people with different cancer from breathing in Lord knows what. Provide a fire escape and don’t lock workers in–146 people died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Don’t dump waste into the waterway–the Cuyahoga River literally caught fire. Don’t produce medical equipment in unsterilized factories with unsterilized equipment–the Dalkon Shield caused millions of infections because it was made in a repurposed Chapstick factory with no sterilization (among other things).
These laws are written in blood.
Every single regulation that is part of the EPA, OSHA, the FDA, and the DOJ is there because people were grievously injuried or died. They’re not there for fun. You might say that this is all common sense stuff but right now Amazon is tallying work place injuries faster than a textile factory at the start of the industrial revolution. Tesla refused to paint orange lines around machines, delineating where it was safe to stand. History tells us that capitalists will put profits first, worker safety be damned.
Now I haven’t read the very, very long list of all the regulations that Mr. Trump decided was worth getting rid of. I don’t think he read that list. But I’m guessing that there was a law about sterilizing equipment for food, maintenance for equipment, and/or consistent inspections that suddenly Abbott Laboratories no longer had to follow. And just like so many other big companies, they decided to put the profit over babies’ lives.
Capitalism is the monster here, and this wouldn’t have happened if one company didn’t have a monopoly on making baby formula. But regulations were a muzzle on that monster and they kept rampant capitalism somewhat in check. With that gone, this is what happens. It’s only a matter of time before we lose another important commodity because regulations were erased.
I remember the day this picture came out, and having worked in the food industry my whole life I knew it was going to lead to disaster…
