{"id":770559,"date":"2026-06-30T07:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770559\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:11:09","slug":"abbott-laboratories-was-investigated-for-poisoning-babies-after-a-500000-donation-trump-let-them-off-the-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770559\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott Laboratories was investigated for poisoning babies. After a $500,000 donation, Trump let them off the hook."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An infant drinks from a baby bottle (Vyacheslav Argenberg \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n

By Lucy Dean Stockton, More Perfect Union<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice just dismissed a years-long criminal probe investigating potentially life-threatening contamination at an Abbott Laboratories facility, an Illinois-based health care and technology company that donated<\/a> more than $500,000 to President Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration funds and has extensive financial connections to one of Trump\u2019s top cabinet members.<\/p>\n

The DOJ this week confirmed<\/a> that it had dismissed its investigation into potential negligence from Abbott Laboratories, which manufactures popular formula brand Similac, over \u200bits mismanagement of a baby formula production facility that potentially endangered infants\u2019 lives \u2014 and may be connected<\/a> to two infant deaths.<\/p>\n

The probe, which began under the Biden administration, followed an incident in which regulators discovered potentially deadly bacteria on equipment in the facility in February 2022<\/a>. The facility resumed production in June of that year, but tight industry concentration<\/a> strained<\/a> the baby formula market, contributing to a national shortage<\/a> in 2022, which forced families to seek assistance from food banks, friends and doctor\u2019s offices.<\/p>\n

According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal<\/a>, some DOJ prosecutors believed they had evidence to criminally charge the company, but the agency\u2019s top decision-makers closed the probe instead, now opting to pursue financial clawbacks and civil penalties.<\/p>\n

Abbott faced another legal battle in January 2023, when Biden\u2019s Federal Trade Commission began formally investigating the company for collusion<\/a> in the baby formula market. The agency alleged that Abbott may have colluded in bidding for contracts with the USDA\u2019s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food assistance program. The company is also facing<\/a> legal penalties of nearly $500 million in a Missouri lawsuit related to its formula for premature infants.<\/p>\n

Abbott previously won a $750 million federal contract<\/a> in 2020 to deliver 150 million COVID-19 rapid test kits, and won another<\/a> under Biden. In his first term, Trump\u2019s administration also fought on behalf of the baby formula industry, arguing<\/a> against international resolutions that would have limited companies\u2019 ability to advertise and sell baby formula abroad, threatening Abbott\u2019s part in a $70 billion global industry. Last May, Trump publicly celebrated<\/a> Abbott\u2019s $500 million investment in its Illinois and Texas manufacturing facilities as a step towards reviving American drug manufacturing.<\/p>\n

In the 2024 election, Abbott\u2019s former CEO Miles White \u2014 who stepped down from the company in 2021 after a 38-year tenure \u2014 chaired former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum\u2019s presidential campaign. White, Abbott employees and their families gave $4 million in donations<\/a> to the Best Of America PAC, which was created to support Burgum\u2019s presidential run. Of that, White gave at least $2 million. In February 2025, Burgum was confirmed as Trump\u2019s Secretary of the Interior.<\/p>\n

Abbott also donated at least $35,000<\/a> to Trump\u2019s inaugural event in 2016, and White publicly expressed he was \u201coptimistic<\/a>\u201d about Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

No unopened, distributed Abbott baby formula products have \u200btested positive for the bacteria that sickened the babies, an Abbott spokesperson told More Perfect Union in an email. Abbott declined to comment on the company\u2019s political donations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An infant drinks from a baby bottle (Vyacheslav Argenberg \/ Wikimedia Commons) By Lucy Dean Stockton, More Perfect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-770559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}