Expert: China Has ‘Global Chokehold’ on Medicine, Can Shut Down Our Pharmacies, Hospitals in Months

Breitbart ^ | 14 Feb 2020 | ROBERT KRAYCHIK

[Hojczyk]

China could effectively shut down America’s healthcare system within months given the one-party state’s “global chokehold” on the manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies, explained Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.

Mansour noted how the coronavirus outbreak in China has exposed America’s dangerous dependence on Chinese production of pharmaceutical and medical supplies, including an estimated 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed for domestic drug production.

Gibson said, “If China shuts the door on exports of medicines and the ingredients to make them, within a couple of months our pharmacies would be empty. Our healthcare system would cease to function. That’s how dependent we are.”

“Another shocking thing I discovered is that India and its huge generic [drug] industry — they’re the top generic producer in the world, although I think China’s going to overtake them in about five to ten years — even India depends on China,” Gibson stated.” [India’s] generic industry would shut down within weeks and months without those core components, and you see it in the Indian press, right now, that they’re already concerned about this because this coronavirus in China is really disrupting supply chains.”

China uses predatory mercantilist policies — including dumping — to undercut American and Western drug manufacturers, just as the communist state did with steel and other commodities, noted Mansour.

Eighty-five percent of the America’s strategic national stockpile of medicines and medical supplies depends on China, Gibson noted.

Gibson concluded, “We have to diversify away from China and bring some manufacturing of essential medicines back home to this country.

[Spktyr]

Uh, yeah, it would. You’re not going to snap your fingers and have it spring up literally overnight.

If nothing else, you should look at where they would have to get their ingredients from, as domestic ingredient suppliers were also decimated.

Or you can look at the US battery industry - and how the lithium mining industry is down to one mine that only produces medicinal amounts. There are other mines now going through the permitting and construction process, due to Trump - but they’re not online yet, they’ve been at least a year in the making and they are months away from producing industrial useful quantities.

[Qiviut]

We’re in deep ‘doo’ where China is concerned. Scary stuff, really.

[goodnesswins]

Interesting...I cannot get extra thyroid meds...they won’t refill till almost out...unless I tell them I “lost them”

[Jane Long]

Yes.

I hope folks are preparing as best they can.

[neverevergiveup]

No one in the world is better and developing and making drugs than the US. There are plenty of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies here, and they can change what they make quickly. Also, China is not the only place in the world that has outsourced drug manufacturing.

I think China poses many, many risks to us, but a large number of those are related to stealing intellectual property, and to state-sponsored aggressive business practices. That said, I am not as worried about them shutting down medicine supply lines.

[kaehurowing]

I find it amazing that America is just figuring this out now. We are almost completely dependent on China and it passed us economically and technologically sometime during the Obama administration. And yet I still read stuff from supposed Washington experts that think people in China are still riding around on bicycles and are ignorant of things going on in the West.

[null and void]

With most of their workforce quarantined, sick or dead, there might be nothing the Communist government can do but recognize that it's shut down!

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[abigkahuna]

This is a National Security threat.
Trump must order those drugs must be made in the U.S.

Much easier said than done...It must be done though. All VA drugs (generics) come from China...I already get a three month supply at a time due to travel, now I will extend that to six months at a time due to potential supply disruptions.

[abigkahuna]

It has been known for some 20 years...

[odawg]

Makes you wonder exactly where our elected leader keep their heads —W, Obama, Clinton?????

Congressman, of course, are bribed, blackmailed, and bought off.

[Artcore]

I just don’t have the energy to participate in this daily hysteria!

How many people have died thus far in 2020 from one of the other more common strains of flu? I know this pisses some people off when this is asked, but I believe it’s relevant.

[ChildOfThe60s]

I order my Synthroid from a Canadian pharmacy (because of cost). Northwestpharmacy.com

But...the problem is not being able to get ahead on it, it is that Synthroid has a relatively short shelf life compared to most drugs. You just can’t safely get as far ahead as I would like to do.

[kaehurowing]

Hint, if someone did some real investigation on how much our political parties and parties are financed by China they would be shocked.

[Mariner]

“China could effectively shut down America’s healthcare system within months given the one-party state’s “global chokehold” on the manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies, explained Rosemary Gibson”

Uh, is that because America and the rest of the world cannot make them? Or would not fire up factories to make them on short notice?

All it would take is a US announcement of 100% tariff on all Chinese drugs and precursors to be in effect for 10 years.

We would have all the cheap drugs we could use in short order.

That article is BS.

[Soul of the South]

There are consequences to outsourcing strategic manufacturing. Ross Perot tried to point out the foolishness of the one sided “free trade” agreements promoted by the Bush family and Clintons. The American people voted for Bush, then Clinton. As a result, we the people put the noose around our own heads.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Hint, if someone did some real investigation on how much our political parties and parties are financed by China they would be shocked.

As well as a number of our colleges.

Westerners have never figured out that the orientals take the long view and are quite adept at incremetalism because of that. Westerners tend to be much more short sighted. Hence, we often get our clocks cleaned when negotiating with them.

Something he told to me as a teenager when my father (USMC Semper fi) came back from serving in Indochina in the early 60s. He said that we (meaning the progressives that have run foreign policy for generations) assume they think like we do when we negotiate with them. They don't and they usually come out ahead because of that.

Trump is having success because he understands hardball and negotiation. Progressives have no idea how to play hardball. The Asian cultures play hardball and expect it in return. They have NO respect for western liberals who just want to "get along".

[Grampa Dave]

We had a fairly good RX program with the company I worked for, and our share of the RX costs increased all the time.

One of my peers told me to get a couple local chief pharmacists and have them work out deals on like 3 months to month supplies. They did and we had some great savings and a good supply.

A couple of weeks ago, some relatives wanted me to send suggestions of how we are prepared for fires, earthquakes/floods. So, I created a list what we have incase no stores are open and no power.

Maybe 5 families have done something and some have sent pictures of what I/we recommended. Like with your contacts, the rest have probably said this won’t happen to them.

One couple actually had a couple of good suggestions.

The lack of hand sanitizer has woke up a couple of these families.

[null and void]

I used to refer to JIT as OSWO.

(Oh Shucks We’re Out)

[TribalPrincess2U]

Yes there are other countries to get it from. However will they be able to produce enough.

[kaehurowing]

A perfect example is Obama. He could make speeches all day long but had no clue how to negotiate or compromise or even achieve any of the goals he kept on talking about. Totally incompetent in terms of implementing anything. Which is why his administration left no legacy—the only thing they could do was illegal administrative orders forced on people, which were all judicially challenged and then repealed by Trump.