Tests of ByHeart infant formula tied to a botulism outbreak that has sickened dozens of babies showed that all of the company's products may have been contaminated.
Laboratory tests of 36 samples of formula from three different lots showed that five samples contained the type of bacteria that can lead to the rare and potentially deadly illness, the company said Monday on its website.
“Based on these results, we cannot rule out the risk that all ByHeart formula across all product lots may have been contaminated,” the company wrote.
At least 31 babies in 15 states who consumed ByHeart formula have been sickened in the outbreak that began in August, according to federal and state health officials. In addition, other infants who drank ByHeart formula were treated for botulism in earlier months, as far back as November 2024, although they are not counted in the outbreak, officials said.
Clostridium botulinum type A, the type of bacteria detected, can be unevenly distributed in powdered formula. Not all babies who ingest it will become ill, though all infants under age 1 are at risk, medical experts said.
ByHeart recalled all of its formula nationwide on Nov. 11. However, some product has remained on store shelves despite the recall, according to state officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Parents and caregivers should stop feeding the formula to babies immediately and monitor the children for symptoms, which can take up to 30 days to appear.
Infant botulism occurs when babies ingest spores that germinate in their intestine and produce a toxin. Symptoms include constipation, difficulty sucking or feeding, drooping eyelids, flat facial expression and weakness in the arms, legs and head. The illness is a medical emergency and requires immediate treatment.
At least 107 babies nationwide have been treated for botulism with an IV medication known as BabyBIG since Aug. 1, health officials said. In a typical year, less than 200 infants are treated for the illness.
To report an illness tied to the outbreak, contact an FDA consumer complaint coordinator or fill out an online MedWatch form.
Consumers who bought ByHeart on the company's website on or after Aug. 1 can receive a full refund, an expansion of its previous policy, the company said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Stephen Dexter holds a container of ByHeart baby formula, which was recently recalled by ByHeart, in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Cheyanne Mumphrey)
LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been damning of the U.K.'s naval capabilities. Their jibes may have stung in a country with a long and proud maritime history, but they do carry some substance.
The U.K. has been at the forefront of Trump’s ire since the onset of the Iran war on Feb. 28, when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to grant the U.S. military access to British bases.
Though that decision has been partly reversed with the decision to permit the U.S. to use the bases, including that of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, for so-called defensive purposes, Trump is adamant he was let down. He has repeatedly lashed out at Starmer and branded the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers as “toys.”
“You don’t even have a navy,” he told Britain's Daily Telegraph in comments published Wednesday. "You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work.”
Hegseth, meanwhile, said sarcastically that the “big, bad Royal Navy” should get involved in making the Strait of Hormuz safe for commercial shipping.
For numerous reasons, the Royal Navy is not as big and bad as it used it to be when Britannia ruled the waves. But it's not as feeble as Trump and Hegseth imply and is largely similar with the French navy, which it is often compared with.
“On the negative side, there is a grain of truth, with the Royal Navy being smaller than it has been in hundreds of years,” said professor Kevin Rowlands, editor of the Royal United Services Institute Journal. “On the positive side, the Royal Navy would say that it’s entering its first period of growth since World War II, with more ships set to be built than in decades.”
It’s not that long ago that Britain could muster a task force of 127 ships, including two aircraft carriers, to sail to the south Atlantic after Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands. That 1982 campaign, which then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan was lukewarm about, marked the final hurrah of Britain’s naval pedigree.
Nothing on that scale, or even remotely, could be accomplished now. Since World War II, Britain’s combat-ready fleet has declined substantially, much of it linked to changing military and technological advances and the end of empire. But not all.
The number of vessels in the Royal Navy fleet, including aircraft carriers, destroyers frigates and submarines has fallen from 166 in 1975 to 66 in 2025, according to The Associated Press' analysis of figures from the Ministry of Defense and the House of Commons Library.
Though the Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers at its command, there was a seven-year period in the 2010s when it had none. And the number of destroyers has halved to six while the frigate fleet has been slashed from 60 to just 11.
The Royal Navy faced criticism for the time it took to send the HMS Dragon destroyer to the Middle East after the war with Iran broke out. Though naval officials worked night and day to get it shipshape for a different mission than the one it was readying for, to many it symbolized the extent to which Britain’s military has been gutted since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
For much of the Cold War, Britain was spending between 4% and 8% of its annual national income on its military. After the Cold War, that proportion steadily dropped to a low of 1.9% of GDP in 2018, fuel to Trump's fire.
Like other countries, Britain, largely under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, sought to use the so-called “peace dividend” following the collapse of the Soviet Union to divert money earmarked for defense to other priorities, such as health and education.
And the austerity measures imposed by the Conservative-led government in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008-9 prevented any pickup in defense spending despite the clear signs of a resurgent Russia, especially after its annexation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine.
In the wake of Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and with another Middle East war underway, there's a growing understanding across the political divide that the cuts have gone too far.
Following the Ukraine invasion, the Conservatives started to turn the military spending tide around. Since the Labour Party returned to power in 2024, Starmer is seeking to ramp up British defense spending, partly at the cost of cutting the country's long-vaunted aid spending.
Starmer has promised to raise U.K. defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, and the updated goal is now for it to rise to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, as part of a NATO agreement pushed by Trump. That, in plain terms, will mean tens of billions pounds more being spent — a lot more kit for the armed forces.
The pressure is on for the government to speed that schedule up. But with the public finances further imperilled by the economic consequences of the Iran war, it's not clear where any additional money will come.
The jibes will likely keep coming even though the critiques are unfair and far from the truth, said RUSI's Rowlands, who was a captain in the Royal Navy.
“We are dealing with an administration that doesn’t do nuance," he said.
This story has been corrected to show there were 166 vessels in 1975, not 466.
An artillery piece from the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and Britain lies on Mount Longdon on the Falkland Islands, also known as Islas Malvinas, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
FILE - The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales is pictured before its port call in Tokyo, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to Royal Marines onboard the HMS ST Albans in Oslo, during his visit to Norway on Friday, May 9, 2025.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool, File)
FILE - Indonesian soldiers stand guard as Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is docked at Tanjung Priok Port during a port visit in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
FILE - Crews walk near the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales before its port call in Tokyo Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
