In September 2016, a distraught mother sent infant formula maker Mead Johnson a message:
“REMOVE ME FROM YOUR LIST!!!! DO NOT EMAIL OR MAIL ME ANY MORE!
“It is because of your animal based pre-term artificial baby food crap that you peddle to hospital NICU’s that my son is dead from NEC.”
The mother was referring to neonatal intensive care units and necrotizing enterocolitis, an often fatal condition in which intestinal tissue can die and allow infection to spread through the body of an infant born prematurely.
In an internal memo, Mead Johnson cited its “extensive quality and safety checks” and concluded there was “not a reasonable possibility” that the formula caused the baby’s death. “No further investigation is needed. This file can be closed,” the memo said.
And with that decision, the company narrowed the chance that the mother’s anguish could draw attention to any danger the formula might pose to other infants.
The mother’s email and the company’s memo assessing it were used as evidence in the court cases Watson v. Mead Johnson and Whitfield v. St. Louis Children’s Hospital, et al.
When doctors, hospitals, parents, or others alert manufacturers that babies got sick or died while receiving infant formula, what happens next is left largely to manufacturers such as Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson Nutrition, giants of the industry.
Mead Johnson’s handling of the mother’s email showed how that can play out.
Under federal rules, if a …