Past Decisions, Devastating Future Consequences – Healthcare Controlled by a Hostile Adversary

Past Decisions, Devastating Future Consequences – Healthcare Controlled by a Hostile Adversary

“China’s pharmaceutical industry relies on mass production of inexpensive generic drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients for revenue.”

Decisions made in the past have a snowball effect for the future as they expose our vulnerability. What we view as progress, could later become a Trojan horse. Selling the idea that the people’s best interests is the main concern by offering options once declared as safe begin to penetrate our health institutions, dispensed by those who hold our health in their hands. Soon, every hospital and home become infiltrated, and because of the popularity and lower prices, the host countries manufacturing facilities begin falling like dominos. As jobs are lost, the economy suffers, and as the addiction grows throughout the land, independence is lost as the benefactor becomes your adversary. Once the country is emerged over their heads, they buy whatever is produced without knowing the quality of the good. Does it really matter though when the nation is hooked and there is no acceptable alternative since all your manufacturing are gone? Being at someone’s mercy is a horrible feeling but when the entire nation is under the grip, that is more than poor management—it is the height of negligence and irresponsibility.

The current problem is that pharmaceutical manufacturing has largely moved overseas—mainly to China and India—and only a few drug ingredients or finished medicines are produced domestically. This means that approximately more than 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are sourced from foreign countries, mainly China, the only source of APIs. If this number was not alarming enough, there is another one: an estimated 70% or more of the generic drugs are manufactured in India using active pharmaceutical ingredients from China. It does not sound as the safest combination not to mention the fact that it is practically impossible to trace back the origin of all the ingredients.

“There is no doubt that American API manufacturing will reduce our dependency on an economic foe, reduce that foe’s leverage in our trade negotiations and increase the quality of the medicine we rely on, while returning high-paying manufacturing jobs to hundreds of American communities.”[1] The question is if/when domestic production will be able to increase again to avoid quality issues like those connected to Chinese production.

According to an article written by Vanda Felbad-Brown in the Brookings, “[m]ore than 5000 firms make up China’s politically-powerful pharmaceutical industry, the world’s largest in terms of exports of basic chemical ingredients and precursors and second largest in terms of annual revenue (more than 100, billion, a third of the value of the US entire pharmaceutical industry).”[2] These businesses replaced what was once within the US domain producing high quality USP pharmaceutical grade raw materials and creating drugs for their own population while exporting throughout the world. That is in the past as a fading memory of better days.

China is a global source of illicit fentanyl and other NPS because the country’s vast chemical and pharmaceutical industries are weakly regulated and poorly monitored. “Unlike the United States, which produces costly, high-value compounds, China’s pharmaceutical industry relies on mass production of inexpensive generic drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients for revenue. The Chinese government has prioritized pharmaceutical production as a “high-value-added industry,” providing export tax rebates to encourage pharmaceutical companies to export their products. As a result, China is currently the world’s largest manufacturer and top exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients.”[3]

According to the Kastel Testimony presented to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, “[b]ecause of the restricted nature of doing business in China, U.S. certifiers are unable to independently inspect farms and assure compliance to the USDA organic food and agriculture standards that are required for export to the U.S. Inspections are conducted by foreign-owned certification agencies accredited by the USDA. But even they cannot freely operate in the country without Chinese government oversight.” Fact is there is practically no control regarding tests on the presence of heavy metals or pesticide because even the USDA has not established them. If this is how organic food is produced, what gives us confidence that they are producing pharmaceutical drugs differently?

This is why we are so adamant not sourcing from China and search the planet for raw materials of higher quality. It is an arduous task since most raw material suppliers stock only from China, we must make specials orders like for our vitamin C from Scotland that is certified non-GMO, our vitamin D3 from Switzerland because the lanolin used is quality controlled and not purchased as mixtures from unknown suppliers and tested to be USP grade. We could go down the list product by product, Immunity 4 in 1 the raw materials are sourced from 4 different countries or Neurotransmitter Support sourced from five different countries. If quality was not our objective, they could all be sourced from China. This takes added time and higher costs but we are assured we are buying the very best we can and results are demonstrated by our repeat customers because the products work as they were designed.

Additional Reading: