Baby formula brought to US by military

STORY: A massive shipment of roughly 39 tons of baby formula landed in the U.S. city of Indianapolis on a military aircraft Sunday arriving from Germany – as the White House tries to address the critical shortage. They also announced that a second flight had been arranged.

Megan Gendig - mother of a 7-month-old infant with a dairy allergy - said the delivery was a big relief.

“They’re life-savers to so many children and so many parents and I’m sure that not only babies are going to be able to go sleep comfortably tonight because their parents are going to know that they actually have food to be able to provide to them for the next few days.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who greeted the plane – said around 17,000 children will benefit from this batch of formula.

In February - a recall by top baby formula maker Abbott Laboratories and the closing of its manufacturing plant in Michigan has created one of the biggest baby formula shortages in recent history for U.S. families.

Dr. Emily Weber at Riley Children’s Health in Indianapolis says she’s working with the community to deliver the goods:

“These families and these children need these formulas to grow and thrive just every day and so, to see this kind of urgency in action is really, really special. And we wanted to be here to see it all coming off the plane knowing that we’re going to be working with our community partners to get it into the hands of families, it’s just really uplifting.”

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to put over a million containers of Nestle baby formula on empty shelves.

Last week – President Biden invoked the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to help increase supplies.