Kerby Anderson

During the pandemic, we unfortunately learned how much of our medicine was manufactured in China. As a recent article reminds us, the current trade war with China is yet another reminder of China’s chokehold on U.S. medicine. Five years later, not much has changed. It is time to plan for a future that isn’t so dependent upon China.

Rosemary Gibson explains this is “a man-made problem, but a fix is possible." She is the co-author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine. She warns, “We have a system that is perfectly designed for catastrophic failure and significant loss of human life, and that has to change.”

She laments, “We can’t make antibiotics anymore in this country, from beginning to end. We can’t make penicillin. We can’t make those antibiotics needed to treat sepsis, which can kill you. We can’t make the antibiotics to treat pneumonia [or] sexually transmitted diseases.”

The reason is simple. After joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, China flooded the market with cheap penicillin raw materials. The goal was to drive producers in other countries out of the market. Once China was able to dominate the market, they raised prices.

The U.S. relies on China for 95 percent of the key ingredients that are necessary for generic drugs. And even if we are no longer reliant on China, we would still need to purchase drugs from countries that rely on China for critical materials. That is why President Trump complained last month, “We don’t make our own drugs anymore.” That is why his administration wants to reshore critical industries.

Bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the U.S. won’t be quick or simple, but we cannot continue to put our health in the hands of the Chinese leaders.