reporter: it s not just in south carolina this is a crisis for us in health care. reporter: at le bonheur children s hospital in tennessee, a preschooler and toddler with special dietary needs were hospitalized after their parents couldn t find the formula they normally take. you have several weeks of stock more now out for the special formulas reporter: the house tonight expected to vote on a bill that would allow families receiving government support called wic the flexibility to buy any brand of formula by one estimate up to 68% of all infant formulas sold in the u.s. is purchased through wic, but there s still confusion and stores with no supply the white house sharply criticized today by members of its own party. i give everybody an f on the entire spectrum of this from the company itself to the fda oversight to the inner agencies who didn t talk to each other to the entire problem. nobody focused on this like they needed to. people should also know that from the p
milk conversely can actually lead to some dehydration in kids whose kidneys just can t handle it. so we ve talked about for years not doing that. like you said, it has gotten pretty bad. so we re just creating another problem to solve the first problem. you re right, the better of alternatives that are not great. we ve heard people are diluting the form uhe lap. formula. and so we ve had other doctors tell us that you might have to switch infant formulas and some parents are freaking out because they want their specific kind of formula. but you might have just to switch formulas. last case is the cow s milk. yes, you are totally right. and i get how hard it is to switch formulas. i remember with our kids, there was one that they liked and that
short periods of time parents with babies six months or older can give them whole cow s milk if no formula is available. that s raising its own questions which, again, best addressed likely with a pediatrician when it it comes to the supply. joining me now is a member of the white house task force. good to have you with us this morning. let s stand where we are with formula on shelves. the fda says it will make it easier to import certain infant formulas. can you give me a date? when will parents start to see the products accessible to them on store shelves? well, absolutely. it s a very serious situation and we re trying to take decisive action to address it. the key is to try to increase supply and we re doing that in a couple of ways. the first is we need to get that plant in michigan that folks have heard about, the abbott plant up and uning. the fda has reached and agreement with abbott to do so. that s important. second, the fda has now issued