More settlement money is coming to Mississippi.
Wednesday, Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced, alongside 39 states and the federal government, that a settlement agreement has been reached with Abbott Laboratories. Abbott, a medical technology company, allegedly sold infant formula and nutritional therapy products to government health programs that failed to meet state and federal safety standards for preventing contamination.
Abbott will reportedly pay $348.7 million to the United States to resolve the allegations and another $35.5 million to the states for claims related to Medicaid programs. Mississippi will receive over $770,000 in restitution as part of the settlement.
“Parents should be able to trust that the infant formula they feed their babies is safe, but Abbott betrayed that trust,” Fitch said. “My office is dedicated to protecting the integrity of the Medicaid program and ensuring that Mississippians receive the necessities that their families rely on. This settlement holds Abbott accountable for knowingly manufacturing formula in substandard conditions and defrauding taxpayers.”
The federal and state governments allege that Abbott knowingly used taxpayer dollars to manufacture infant formula in an environment that put the products at risk of microorganism contamination and significantly impacted the safety, quality, and reliability of the product.
They also allege that Abbott failed to disclose test results that indicated the presence of microorganism contamination in response to requests from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 and 2022 at a Sturgis, Mich. facility. The national settlement resolves these allegations.
