Dangerous DIY baby milk formula recipes in US go viral as parents get desperate
- Solutions to the shortage are being sought on the internet, but medical experts agree that home-made versions of the formula come with serious health risks
- Facebook, TikTok and YouTube have labelled videos and posts with information pointing out the harm of the recipes, sometimes removing them, but inconsistently
As an America’s nationwide baby milk formula shortage sends parents into crisis mode, social media posts containing dangerous misinformation about home-made formula recipes have gone viral online, racking up millions of views.
Although major platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and YouTube have taken steps to label photos, videos and posts with contextual information pointing out the harms of such recipes, and in some cases removed them, they have done so inconsistently, allowing the advice to continue spreading and putting children at risk.
“Platforms still haven’t learned the lesson that their obsession with engagement is leading them to recommend wildly unsafe content,” said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist studying misinformation at New York University. “The fact that they still have not fixed this issue after years of very clear evidence that their algorithms are promoting dangerous content is shocking.”
Scant availability of formula has been a problem for months because of supply-chain disruptions that have affected consumers across major industries. After Abbott Laboratories’ nutrition unit recalled some of its products earlier this year, including its top-selling brand Similac, stockpiles were further depleted, leading parents to try anything.
On May 18, President Joe Biden took urgent action to address the crisis, invoking the Defence Production Act to increase production and instructing Defence Department planes to speed formula shipments into the country from overseas.
