Thank you.
You're absolutely right regarding feeding. Breastfeeding does have unique benefits, but that should not mean that mothers, in particular, should face an additional burden or expectation, as they are already facing the hardest job in the world. My wife went back to work at two months after our son was born, and she had difficulty with pumping, so we used formula. I'm totally okay with that.
Now, in terms of drug shortages, I think there are different pieces to it. With the pain medication, we're talking about shortages of drugs that are generally available and were acutely not available. There are also many drugs that are just never available in child-friendly formulations. There's a list from the Goodman Centre in Montreal of over 20 drugs available in other countries that are commercially made liquid formulations that are not available in Canada because their drug maker just hasn't applied for approval. This includes a key epilepsy drug, and it includes many others, so it's a mix of products that are generally available—the availability does vary and that has been the cause of the recent shortages—and products that are not available at all in child-friendly formulations but might be available in other countries.
Then there are drugs for which there aren't pediatric formulations in any country. For some of our HIV medications, if you have an infant who is born with HIV.... You know, we laugh about not taking grape-flavoured medicines, but these medicines are important. If you have to take a medicine every day—if your infant has to do that in order to not develop resistant strains of HIV—that is serious business, and these medications can be extremely unpalatable, because they're not available. As a result, some children can develop drug resistance to that, so that is something that happens.
There are actually several different layers of having the right medications for children, including some that you touched on.