{"id":100641,"date":"2025-12-19T04:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T04:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/100641\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T04:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T04:00:18","slug":"target-accused-of-failing-to-remove-botulism-linked-baby-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/100641\/","title":{"rendered":"Target accused of failing to remove botulism-linked baby formula"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Infant formula that could have been tainted with botulism remained on Target shelves after a recall, according to federal officials. <\/p>\n

The chain store failed to quickly remove the recalled formula, ByHeart \u2014 linked to a nationwide botulism outbreak \u2014 from its retail locations in several states including California, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says. <\/p>\n

To date, the outbreak has led to the hospitalization of 51 infants. No deaths have been reported. <\/p>\n

On Monday, the FDA announced that it sent warning letters<\/a> to four of the nation\u2019s top retail stores \u2014 Target, Walmart, Kroger and Albertsons \u2014 when the companies hadn\u2019t removed ByHeart from their stores in certain states despite being notified of the recall.<\/p>\n

Target was the only company of the four that hadn\u2019t removed the recalled product from its stores in California. <\/p>\n

ByHeart Inc. initiated a voluntary recall of ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula on Nov. 8, and three days later, the company expanded the recall to include all unexpired lots of formula cans and single-serve \u201canywhere pack\u201d sticks. Target was directly notified of both recall notices, according to the FDA. <\/p>\n

In response, the warning letter states, Target said it placed an electronic block on the SKU for the recalled products on the day of the first recall notice and again with the second recall notice. <\/p>\n

However, subsequent visits by FDA regulators confirmed that the recalled products remained available for purchase in Target\u2019s retail locations across 20 states, including California, from Nov. 12 through 20, according to the warning letter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

According to those investigating, store associates said the recalled product was still on shelves because of \u201ca lack of awareness of the recall notice, confusion regarding which specific lots were affected, failure to remove all impacted product, and stocking products that arrived after the recall notification.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Dec. 12, Target had not provided the FDA with any information demonstrating that corrective actions had been taken. <\/p>\n

Target did not respond to The Times\u2019 request for comment before publication. <\/p>\n

As of Dec. 10, reports of cases linked to the infant botulism outbreak had slowed, and public health officials have not added any new cases to this investigation. <\/p>\n

Illnesses were reported as far back as Dec. 24, 2023, and as recently as Dec. 1 of this year. Laboratory confirmation for some cases is ongoing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Infant formula that could have been tainted with botulism remained on Target shelves after a recall, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[54846,7,1436,54845,54847,1804,24093,37966,30897,48,52,51,47,50,49,3651,8850,54849,2838,2837,54848],"class_list":["post-100641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-byheart","tag-california","tag-case","tag-certain-state","tag-chain-store","tag-company","tag-dec","tag-fda","tag-infant-formula","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-product","tag-recall-notice","tag-retail-location","tag-target","tag-walmart","tag-warning-letter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}