Many of you, I'm sure by now, have heard about the massive Similac recall that has occurred. Similac has predicted a return cost of $1 million. Other sites (and ones not so eager to downplay the magnitude of this incident) have predicted that the recall affects as many as 5 million cans of formula. Lets do the math here: 5 million cans (now, granted, not all of them have been purchased by consumers and vendors most certainly do pay less than all of us hardworking moms out here in the world) but for the sake of this, lets just say $21 a pop for Similac (Wal-Mart prices for all but the specialty types) x 5 million cans comes to a grand total of $105,000,000 (give or take). Um, hello Similac??? Just $1 million? Your accountants are as uninformed as your pest control people.
I didn't intend to open my blog up this way but as a mom whose daughter has been on Similac formulas since she was about 8 weeks old, this has really weighed on me. Allow me to run my experience by you.
I gave birth to what they call a 'Breast rejector'. In other words, my daughter came out of the womb absolutely opposed to breast feeding. I know it sounds crazy and I probably wouldn't have believed it myself if my lactation coach hadn't told me this. But that's what we're dealing with here. She fought against the breast, kicking, punching, twisting away, pulling, etc. She also had severe problems latching on which meant that she had almost zero patience with the whole situation. I worked with a lactation coach off and on again for 2 weeks before it became absolutely clear that this was not going to work. At first the plan was to just supplement with formula but because Ash had never made an honest effort at breast feeding, my milk just never fully came in. And after 3 weeks of diligent attempts at pumping, it simply went away. The coach recommended that I try taking the drug Reglan but that drug has been blacklisted by the FDA so I said, 'No f-ing way'.
So we did formula. It wasn't what I wanted, I'm not totally proud of it, but my daughter had to eat and I couldn't supply milk for her. The first formula she had was Similac, a sample that had come in the mail before Ash was born. But we'd heard that Enfamil Premium was the best out there so we switched her to that. A week and massive vomiting-like spit ups later, we were told Ash needed to be on Soy. We switched her to Similac Soy, then later to Enfamil Soy. Then, after another round of vomiting-like spit ups, it became clear that she had an Enfamil problem, not a milk problem. So back to Similac we went. When she was 5 months old, our pediatrician helped us get her off soy and back onto the milk-based Similac Sensitive, which she was on up until this recall.
-On September 16th, Ash came home from daycare with the beginnings of a fever. She was happy and playful and eating fairly well so we assumed she was teething. Sure enough, the outline of 4 teeth could be seen in her gumline.
-On September 17th, the fever was much worse and the screaming began. The pediatrician felt confident that this was all related to teething and told me to monitor the fever.
-On September 18th, the fever broke but the screaming continued unabated.
-On September 19th, she began to calm down, we believed because of all our efforts at soothing her little enflamed gums. She began fighting her bottles.
-On September 20th, we took her to the pediatrician. Yes, she was cutting 4 teeth at once but she also had a viral infection in her throat. We were told to give her a lidocaine mixture to sooth her throat.
-On September 21st, the diarrhea began. We believed it was caused by the suggested Motrin/Tylenol regimen plus the Lidocaine mix.
-On September 22nd, the mild diarrhea continued but we had one smiling and happy baby. It was about this time that she began seriously fighting against her bottles, more so than before. I did not help matters by trying to get her to finish them even though she clearly did not want them. My only excuse is that I know how much she eats when she is normal and hungry so I did not understand this not eating thing of hers.
-On September 23rd, I found out via my friend Sherry about the Similac recall. At first I believed that it was a recall on her specific kind of Similac since her daughter is on a specialty mix. That morning, Ashlyn choked on her bottle and threw up/spit up a huge amount all over both of us. I cleaned her up and later that morning, gave her another 3 ounces. She immediately made a poopy diaper but did keep the bottle down. I truly believed this was all still related to the medicine she was on as she had no fever and did not seem distressed. As soon as I got to work, my mother-in-law had emailed me a link to the full Similac recall and I began to panic. I called Ash's daycare and told them to set aside her formula, that I would be bringing her something else. I called Ash's pediatrician and asked what they knew about it. I found out the lot numbers on her cans and prepared to find out if they were affected.
Here's the problem: the Similac website was so overloaded with other worried moms trying to find out if THEIR babies cans were affected that the website all but shut down every time I clicked on the link. The pediatrician called me back and informed me that Similac was not giving out a list of all the affected lot numbers because the list was SO massive. They told me to treat her can like it was, switch her to a different formula brand and give her some Pedialyte.
At about 2 o'clock that afternoon, I was finally able to get into the site and yes, both of Ash's cans were affected. Duh. She had all the side effects: not wanting to eat, gastrointestinal discomfort and trouble.
A 3 o'clock, her daycare called and said that Ash had thrown up every bottle they had tried to give her. Like me, at first they thought she had gotten choked on the formula. But by the 2nd bottle, they knew something else was going on. I brought her home and called the doctor again. They told me to give her nothing but Pedialyte for 24 hours and watch and see. She had no fever, she was still smiley and happy and did not act sick in the slightest. We started giving her the Pedialyte and she had no trouble keeping it down.
24 hours later, we switched her over the the Gerber formula and she gulped it down greedily and kept it down, thank God!
So that was what we went through because of the Similac formula. I returned all my opened cans of Similac to Wal-Mart for a full refund because of the recall and I suppose I should move on with my life, right? Here's the thing: you put a certain amount of faith in the manufacturers of the food that you put into yours and your family's mouths. You expect that the FDA monitors these things as diligently as they should. With what you put into your baby's mouth, you expect more. You expect CONSTANT monitoring because your baby is so fragile and so susceptible to bacteria and infection. You expect HONESTY from the companies that market to you. You expect the HIGHEST standards of cleanliness and quality. And then you hear something like this:
Abbott announced earlier today that it is voluntarily recalling particular Similac-brand, powder infant formulas in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and some countries in the Caribbean because they may have been tainted by beetles. The company detected the presence of a small common beetle in the product produced in one of its manufacturing facilities. (taken from NJ.com)
Now, my husband, who is less naive and more enlightened than I am, clearly, informed me this weekend that in every factory handling food stuffs, a certain amount of bug activity is allowed and even expected. It's monitored for the most part but there are probably insect parts hidden away in quite a bit of what we eat (can I just say YE-YUCK???) and that it doesn't cause any harm. That's just the way it is. But how is it that so many insects were allowed to just roam free in this Similac plant in Michigan (MICHIGAN, or christ's sake!!!) that there were actually ground up into this baby formula in mass? I mean, it's not like someone opened up a canister of Similac, spotted a beetle and reported it to Abbot and they went, "Hold on a second! We have a problem!" No one knew. But Abbot (the maker of Similac) knew. This was probably an ongoing issue that they were just 'monitoring'. They knew that bugs had gotten into the formula and instead of immediately recalling their product, they more than likely decided to 'wait and see'. Surely it won't actually cause any harm! Not the kind of harm that would make it worth the sort of profit loss that THEY would have to face! Wrong.
My daughter and my friend's daughter became ill from the tainted Similac but their cases were mild in comparison to the large number of babies who were hospitalized over this. Maybe there will be NO LONG TIME side effects, but to a mom with a sick baby, 4 days feels like a lifetime. And I can't even imagine the pain and worry that the moms with hospitalized children are feeling right now. I don't even want to imagine.
Similac has had a fairly decent run of it with a good reputation for quality. But enough is enough. Imagine the kind of negligence that went into this. Imagine the big boys in the company twiddling their thumbs before deciding they had to report a problem. I do give them credit for issuing the recall. We probably wouldn't have known what the problem was if they hadn't. But then I remember that they had to have known about this for a while. Ash ingested at least 2 tainted cans. And since one of those was her daycare canister, purchased 2 weeks before her last home canister, it's quite likely that she had at least 3. Maybe more. Considering the massive list of affected lot numbers that have been recalled, these tainted cans have probably been in circulation for at least a month, if not much longer.
This is not okay. For my part, Ash will NEVER ingest another Similac or Abbot product. If a class action lawsuit is filed (which you know there will be), I will be signing up. But I want to see more. I want to see parents and consumers boycotting Abbot. I want to see a public apology for their negligence. And I want to see them fully admit how severe this recall is. I want to see a full list of lot numbers, a full count of cans, and a total admission of responsibility. I won't get it, I'm sure but I think it's the least they can do.
My baby girl is feeling so much better and for that I am so, so grateful. But we should have been able to trust that her formula, which is supposed to provide her with the nourishment that I could not provide her with, wouldn't cause her to become so sick in the first place. To all the moms with affected babies, you are in my prayers.
