Found a 2019 Reddit post predicting the baby formula shortage 2 years before it hit the news

Was digging through old threads last night and stumbled on a post from r/PrepperIntel from March 2019. Someone who worked at Abbott's plant in Sturgis, Michigan warned about a major production line being shut down for months due to contamination issues. They said it would ripple through the supply chain and cause shortages for infants on specialty formulas. At the time people just laughed it off as fear mongering. Then in 2021 the plant actually closed and the whole crisis exploded. Has anyone else found early warnings that got dismissed by the crowd?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_davis4d ago

Didn't it also line up with those FDA inspection reports that kept getting buried around the same time? The whistleblower stuff from a few Abbott workers in late 2020 basically confirmed the exact timeline that post laid out. Makes you wonder how many other "crazy" prepper posts are actually just insiders trying to warn people without getting fired.

mark_green4d ago

@evan_davis Right? Makes my own prepper posts seem a lot less crazy and a lot more "oops I forgot to hide my sources.

paige1663d agoMost Upvoted

You never know, but 'exactly confirmed' feels like a stretch. Those whistleblower claims were pretty vague and never really went anywhere in court from what I remember. Easy to connect dots after the fact, harder to prove they were actually trying to warn anyone about something this big.