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Amoxicillin Shortage Shows the Need for Domestic Drug Production
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
November 28, 2022
Newsweek
…This fall, the spread of RSV in children and related bacterial infections prompted a run on pharmacies for the antibiotic amoxicillin. Far-flung supply chains, still backed up from the initial shock of COVID-19, have been unable to compensate for the surge in demand. The result is a national shortage of the drug––and widespread anxiety among parents of sick kids….
It’s something I’ve warned about for years. In a 2019 speech at the National Defense University, I acknowledged that moving drug production overseas lowered labor costs and increased corporate profits, but I pointed out that it came with a cost. It made us dependent on Communist China, our greatest geopolitical adversary, for essential goods….
American antibiotics used to be made in the U.S. But by 2019, 80% of the medical industry’s active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for drugs like amoxicillin came from overseas––and a majority were potentially traceable to China. Now, when amoxicillin is needed the most, it’s nowhere to be found…. We’re long overdue for a change in approach.
I reintroduced my Medical Manufacturing, Economic Development, and Sustainability (MMEDS) Act in 2020 to bring that change about. This bill would use financial incentives to encourage the relocation of medical and pharmaceutical production to the U.S….
It’s been almost three years since COVID first reached our shores––our leaders no longer have the excuse of inexperience with medical emergencies. If Congress does not act to restore America’s medical and pharmaceutical industries, it will show…a willful negligence of potentially deadly proportions.