A dangerous monopoly

Monday, Jan. 26, 2009 | 2:09 a.m.

It is estimated one of every two Americans takes a prescription drug every day. This means half the country’s population is dependent on Asian workers for their medications.

This is because the manufacture of active ingredients for everything from allergy pills to antibiotics, once a thriving industry in the United States, has been almost totally outsourced to Asia — mostly to China — for the usual reasons.

The workforce in Asian countries, in the vernacular of corporate executives, is cheap labor. The countries there have far fewer environmental laws and their regulatory agencies are ineffective by U.S. standards. Additionally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not have the money to send more than a handful of inspectors overseas, despite the thousands of drug-making plants in Asia that are run by American companies.

Outsourcing is a good deal for pharmaceutical companies, but risky for both consumers and, as The New York Times wrote last week, for national security.

The paper quoted Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who has held hearings that have attracted the interest of drug experts and other lawmakers.

“The lack of regulation around outsourcing is a blind spot that leaves room for supply disruptions, counterfeit medicines, even bioterrorism,” Brown told the Times.

Just how much the world is at China’s mercy in respect to crucial drugs was described by Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairman of Cipla, an FDA-approved pharmaceutical giant based in Mumbai, India.

“If tomorrow China stopped supplying pharmaceutical ingredients, the worldwide pharmaceutical industry would collapse,” Hamied told the Times.

China has gained international notoriety for exporting tainted food and medicines. It obviously should not have a near monopoly on the manufacture of drug and medicinal ingredients, the quality and supply of which can mean the difference between life and death for millions of people.

Some members of Congress want a law requiring certain drugs be made or stockpiled in the U.S., the Times reported. They are right. It is crazy to be outsourcing nearly 100 percent of a critically needed product.