The US Food and Drug Administration wrote the following in its letter to
health professionals:

"Dear Health Care Professional:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is writing to inform you about a
growing body of information pertaining to Enterobacter sakazakii infections
in neonates fed milk-based powdered infant formulas. Clusters of E. sakazakii
infections have been reported in a variety of locations over the past several
years among infants fed milk-based powdered infant formula products from
various manufacturers. One study tested milk-based powdered infant formula
products obtained from a number of different countries and found that E.
sakazakii could be recovered from 20 (14%) of 141 samples (1).
Enterobacter sakazakii is a gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium within the
family Enterobacteriaceae. The organism was called "yellow-pigmented
Enterobacter cloacae" until 1980 when it was renamed Enterobacter sakazakii
(2). The majority of cases of E. sakazakii infection reported in the
peer-reviewed literature have described neonates with sepsis, meningitis, or
necrotizing enterocolitis (3-5) as a consequence of the infection, and the
case-fatality rate among infected neonates has been reported to be as high as
33%."

My question is, are the neonates who die from sepsis, meningitis or
necrotizing enterocolitis caused by this organism--enterobacter
sakazakii--listed as deaths due to ingestion of contaminated infant formula
or deaths due to sepsis, meningitis, necrotizing enterocolitis?  I guess that
is a rhetorical question since I already know the answer.

 I find it very upsetting that an infant can die from enterobacter sakazakii
infection and it takes the FDA a year to issue a recall.  And that recall
does not even make headlines--or at least I haven't seen any major issue made
of it.  Since this infection causes sepsis, meningitis or necrotizing
enterocolitis, will we ever know how many infants actually died from
contaminated infant formula?  Guess not.

This certainly points out how powerful the infant formula industry is when
they can keep this very quiet.  If an adult dies because they ate something
that was contaminated, it would make major headlines.  Once again the infant
formula industry sweeps the evidence under the carpet.  Valerie W. McClain,
IBCLC

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