They spent a lot of money on stock buybacks [0]. Maintaining production capacity was not a priority. Never forget what Milton Freedman said, the first priority of a company is to increase profits for its shareholders. With the recent evolution of finance, that priority term is getting shorter. The value must be brought for the next quarter. What happens 6 months from now is becoming less and less relevant.
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"?
No. The article is an opinion piece not an in-depth reporting. You can read this "straight to the point" news source [0] to get some facts on that particular matter.
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.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/strategy-and-strength/ab...