Back in December 2019, there was an article written around the findings of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission that focused on China’s efforts to become the world’s largest producer of pharmaceutical products. It was not given much play time.
Rosemary Gibson, an author and adviser on health care issues at the Hastings Center, was the co-author of a book: “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”
In that book, she said three interesting things:
“Medicines can be used as a weapon of war against the United States.”
“Supplies can be withheld. Medicines can be made with lethal contaminants or sold without any real medicine in them, rendering them ineffective.”
“If China shut the door on exports of medicines and their key ingredients and raw material, US hospitals and military hospitals and clinics would case to function within months, if not days.”
Now, the United States finds itself in exactly the vulnerable position that both of these writings suggested might happen.
Come on, Big Red Car, China?
Yes, dear reader, the same Chinese Communists who operate concentration camps, who are smothering Hong Kong’s desire to live the “One China, Two Systems” promise, who are re-educating the Muslim Uighers, same chaps who have developed the Chinese Social Credit System by which they determine the fate of each of their 1,400,000,000 citizens, same bunch who anointed Xi Jinping “President For Life” <<< one Hell of a pension program. Yep, that China.
Communist China At 70 — A Bill Of Particulars
Do we depend on China, Big Red Car?
Yes, dear reader, we do. Here’s a bit of it.
To put this into perspective, allow me to lay out how much we depend on China:
95% of US imports of ibuprofen come from China (Advil like pain reliever, fever reducer)
91% of hydrocortisone (reduces swelling, itches, redness, allergies)
70% of acetaminophen (Tylenol like pain killer, fever reducer)
45% of penicillin (antibiotic) <<< no penicillin is made in the USA, last made here in 2004
40% of heparin (blood thinner, anticoagulant)
This is just a smattering of the drug dependency the US has on the Chinese supply chain. They are an enormous supplier of drugs to the US. Enormous.
It is worth noting that in 2008 contaminated supplies of the blood thinner HEPARIN made in China resulted in the deaths of 149 Americans. The US Food and Drug Administration responded by stationing inspectors in Chinese manufacturing plants.
Would they dare?
Yes, dear reader, they would.
In a recent article in Xinhua, a state run media outlet (propaganda digital rag) that is the surest way to divine what the ruling Chinese Communist Party thinks about everything, an article appeared that stated rather threateningly that China could impose “pharmaceutical export controls” and thereby “plunge America into the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
XinhuaNet
The Chinese have begun to brag at how expertly they have handled their end of the Wutang Flu (coronavirus) and how the virus might have been planted by American malefactors. These kind of outlandish claims are not something new for China, but they are real.
This is the same bunch who told us that they were building maintenance shops for their domestic fishing fleet when they began to build facilities on contested atolls in the South China Sea during the Obama administration. Now, we have a dozen armed atolls with shore-to-ship missiles, radar guided anti-air missiles, and 12,000′ long runways that can accommodate every plane in the Chinese air force. These facilities put the Subic Bay anchorage in the Philippines in jeopardy. This is how China operates.
Bottom line it, Big Red Car
President Donald J Trump when running for POTUS got it right: “China is not our friend.” He pointed out their wholesale theft of intellectual property, their manipulation of their currency, their disregard for environmental considerations, and their trade cheating.
We need to wake up. We cannot have our medical safety in the hands of an enemy with whom we are engaged in daily cyber warfare. Wake. Up. America.
Every bit of our medicine manufacturing, that we out sourced to foreign countries, needs to come home. It is a strategic industry and it may just kill us if we don’t.
This is a call to action we better not disregard.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Wake up, American.