They either had a profitable product line or not. If it was profitable, they had every incentive to fix the problem. Stock buybacks don't change any of that - in fact, they need profit to actually do buybacks.

And not thinking long term? I mean Abbott has been making formula for decades? You're telling me their CFO is like "meh, who care if that multi-billion dollar business goes under in 6 months"?

I am not saying that the current crisis is entirely due to this event. But it made what was probably already a bad but manageable situation into a full blown crisis.

This "newsletter" piece [1] in the NYT mentions several other aspects like business concentration.

[0] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2022/04/former-employee-blows...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/briefing/baby-formula-sho...

And your 2nd link covers the same things as the main article - concentration and too much regulation?