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- <text id=91TT0070>
- <title>
- Jan. 14, 1991: Business Notes:Antitrust
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Jan. 14, 1991 Breast Cancer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 45
- Business Notes
- ANTITRUST
- Formula for Controversy
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When most people gaze at a newborn child, they see a bundle
- of joy. The makers of infant formula see something else: a
- bundle of loot. That's the argument of industry critics who
- claim that the leaders of the $1.5 billion formula business
- have unfairly boosted their prices 150% during the 1980s. Last
- week the state of Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court
- against the top U.S. formula makers: Abbott Laboratories (maker
- of Similac), American Home Products (Nursoy) and Bristol-Myers
- Squibb (Enfamil). The civil suit accuses the companies of
- fixing and inflating formula prices.
- </p>
- <p> Antitrust accusations have dogged the firms for months. In
- a congressional hearing last May, Senator Howard Metzenbaum of
- Ohio denounced the price increases and their "devastating"
- impact on government programs that buy infant formula for
- low-income families. Metzenbaum's hearing spurred a still
- active investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The
- companies deny that any conspiracy took place.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-