This family photo shows Willow Jade Dellaquila, a day after she was born in October 2023, in La Grange, Ky. Willow Jade died at the age of 13-days-old in November 2023, after contracting a Cronobacter sakazakii infection traced to a can of Similac Total Comfort powdered infant formula. (Family photo via AP)
The parents of a Kentucky baby who died last fall after drinking bacteria-tainted infant formula are the latest to sue Abbott Nutrition, the manufacturer at the heart of a 2022 crisis that left millions of Americans scrambling to feed their children.
Willow Jade Dellaquila, of Carrollton, Kentucky, was 13 days old when she died on Nov. 5, 2023. She was infected with cronobacter sakazakii, a dangerous germ traced to a can of Similac Total Comfort powdered formula used in the baby’s bottles, records show.
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“They told me she had a stroke on her right side of the brain,” Cheyenne Ping, Willow’s 25-year-old mother, said in an interview. “It’s really heartbreaking. No one should have to go through this.”
Ping and the baby’s 26-year-old father, Christian Dellaquila, can move forward with a lawsuit against Abbott, an Illinois judge ruled Wednesday.
The couple had previously sought to join a lawsuit with two other families who say their children suffered devastating brain damage caused by cronobacter linked to a different type of Abbott powdered formula, Similac Neosure. Mira White, a Missouri baby, was sickened with cronobacter in March 2023 at age 6 weeks. Ryker Brown, an Illinois toddler, was infected with the bacteria in July 2021, at age 4 weeks. Both survived.
But the judge on Wednesday asked that the three cases be filed separately, leaving open the question of whether they would be consolidated later.
The original lawsuit in December targeted Abbott, whose Sturgis, Michigan, plant was shuttered for months in 2022 after similar reports of infant illnesses and deaths. U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors found what agency chief Dr. Robert Califf called “shocking” conditions, including cronobacter, which led to recalls and sparked shortages that rocked U.S. formula supplies for more than a year.
Willow consumed formula made at the Sturgis plant and sold at a local Walmart store more than a year after Abbott was placed under court-mandated oversight by the FDA, The Associated Press has learned. The formula Ryker and Mira consumed was made at the company’s plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, which was the target of a separate whistleblower complaint about dangerous conditions, according to federal records.
Documents obtained by the AP show that an April 2023 FDA inspection at the Arizona site found lapses in contamination-prevention protocols, multiple detections of cronobacter at the plant and nearly two dozen complaints of confirmed cronobacter, salmonella or other infections in infants who had been fed formula made at the plant. Abbott officials said no link was found between the illnesses and the company’s formula, the records show.
The lawsuits accuse Abbott of negligence, fraud and failing to warn parents of potential dangers of powdered formula and demand at least $450,000 per family.
Abbott officials say there is no proven link between the product and any infections, including the cases outlined in the lawsuit. Every can of Similac says that the product is not sterile and should not be fed to premature infants or infants who might have immune problems, unless directed and supervised by a doctor.
“No sealed, distributed product from our facilities have tested positive for Cronobacter sakazakii and we don’t believe these claims have merit,” Abbott officials said in an email Wednesday.
In a court filing, Abbott officials argued that there was no common connection between the cases, which occurred at different times, in different states and involved two different types of formula.
“The fact that each infant experienced a Cronobacter infection (months or years apart) is of no moment,
After baby’s death, Kentucky parents sue infant formula maker at center of 2022 crisis
