Is US medicine safety at risk? Growing dependence on China raises questions

Washington: The United States’ growing dependence on China for raw materials and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in essential medicines has raised alarm among lawmakers and health experts, who warn it poses a serious national security threat and potential public health crisis.

During a Senate Special Committee on Ageing hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers and industry specialists highlighted how decades of offshoring pharmaceutical production have left the US vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and foreign leverage over critical drugs.

Committee chairman Senator Rick Scott stressed that the issue extends well beyond a handful of medicines, noting that Americans increasingly rely on drugs whose key ingredients are sourced from overseas.

““I’m talking about our antibiotics, our diabetes drugs, our blood pressure medications, essential life-saving medicines found in every hospital, every pharmacy, and every medicine cabinet in this country,” Scott said.

Scott attributed the vulnerability to longstanding policy decisions that prioritised lower production costs over security and reliability.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the committee’s ranking member, said the US has become heavily reliant on China and India for the production of generic drugs, APIs, and key starting materials. She highlighted factors such as government subsidies, lower labour costs, and laxer environmental regulations in China, as well as market dynamics that favour lower prices over quality.

“Incentives for manufacturers are solely based on cost and not quality,” Gillibrand said, calling on Congress to strengthen the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s authority to ensure foreign drug manufacturers meet US safety standards.

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Former Congressman Ted Yoho also warned that China’s dominance in the global pharmaceutical market is the result of US regulatory policies and corporate decisions to move production abroad.

“China controls the world market price and supply chain,” Yoho said, cautioning that this dependence threatens both public health and national security.

Safety concerns were further highlighted by Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx, who cited a US military testing programme that found significant quality failures in generic medicines. Of 13 tested drugs, roughly 15 per cent failed basic quality standards, with some containing toxins such as thallium, arsenic, lead, and other carcinogens.

Gibson warned that a disruption in Chinese pharmaceutical exports could have catastrophic consequences. When asked about the potential impact, she said bluntly: “A lot of people would die in this country.”

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Health policy expert Chan Harjivan of the Duke-Margolis Institute emphasised that the focus should be on building resilient supply chains rather than fully reshoring pharmaceutical production.

“The goal should not be complete reshoring of global pharmaceutical production,” he said. Instead, the US should establish a network of trusted international partners while maintaining domestic capacity for critical medicines.

The hearing underscored bipartisan concern over China-dependent supply chains, echoing debates on semiconductors, rare-earth minerals, and medical equipment, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in global manufacturing networks.

IANS