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https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/02/14/expert-china-has-global-chokehold-on-medicine-can-shut-down-our-pharmacies-hospitals-in-months/
Expert: China Has ‘Global Chokehold’ on Medicine, Can Shut Down Our Pharmacies, hospitals in months
ROBERT KRAYCHIK14 Feb 20205,262
12:43
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.
Gibson, senior adviser at the Hastings Center, offered her remarks on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Ed Martin.
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.”
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Gibson added, “Say there’s a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, God forbid, and a lot of people end up in hospitals with severe cases. The medicines needed to care for them if they can’t breathe and are on a ventilator — fentanyl and propofol — [are made in China]. We depend on China for the raw materials. If they go into shock, the epinephrine and dopamine we need to care for them, we depend on China. If they have bacterial infections, we depend on China for the antibiotics.”
Many over-the-counter supplements sold in the U.S. are at least partly manufactured in China, Gisbon noted. “We can’t make [vitamin C] here anymore. That comes from China.”
America has lost much of its manufacturing apparatus for medicines to China via globalization, explained Gibson. “With our medicines, it’s not just the active ingredient [that is made in China]. It’s the raw chemicals, the molecules, the white powdery stuff, that we also depend on China for. That’s where China has the real global chokehold.”
Gibson explained how generic drugs manufacturers around the world are dependent on China for raw materials.
“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.”
“Would you trust taking a last resort antibiotic for your child that was made in China?” asked Gisbon. “Would you trust it? Would you trust a chemotherapy if your child has leukemia? More than ten percent of the generics that have been tested in the U.S. don’t meet standards, by the way.”
Gibson went on “Most Americans don’t trust. They remember when thousands of dogs and cats died when a Chinese company contaminated pet food, and hundreds of humans died when the Chinese did a very insidious and sophisticated operation to contaminate a blood thinner widely used in hospitals.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
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