A bill that would direct the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure that companies that produce drugs for Americans do not have ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
Cotton made the case for such a bill at a March Breitbart News policy event in Washington, DC, telling Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle China has used “illegitimate means” to corner the U.S. pharmaceutical market.
“Many of our — not super high-end, cutting-edge drugs, but just very basic medicines like ibuprofen and acetaminophen, penicillin, heparin,” Cotton mentioned, explaining that China “has cornered the market on that over the decades, and that’s a dangerous place to be.”
“We take it for granted. You can just go to Walmart and pick up a bottle of ibuprofen if you want, but trying to cut us off, that’s a big problem. Or if your kid’s got an ear infection and you can’t get antibiotics because China’s cut us off, that’s a big problem,” the senator continued, adding another aspect — that there are “several cases of people falling ill or even dying” from cheap Chinese drugs.
The Arkansas Republican took aim at the issue he brought attention to in March with the “Securing America’s Drug Supply from Communist China Act,” introduced on Thursday.
The act’s text would mandate the FDA, in coordination with the HHS Office of National Security, review previously approved drugs and future drug applications:
The Secretary shall not approve any drug application submitted on or after the date of enactment of this Act if the Secretary has determined […] that the sponsor of such application is a [People’s Republic of China]-, [Chinese Communist Party]-, or [People’s Liberation Army]-affiliated entity.
If a drug is determined to have been produced by a company with ties to the CCP, “then such drug shall be refused […] and the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection shall destroy, without the opportunity for export, such drug.”
Cotton’s act would appropriate $5,000,000 to carry out the aforementioned actions.
“We shouldn’t be green-lighting Chinese drugs while we’re drowning American pharmaceutical and biotech companies in red tape and making it harder for them to build new manufacturing facilities,” the Arkansas senator said during last month’s policy event.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Thursday, Cotton argued that “relying on our chief adversary for lifesaving medicine endangers Arkansans and threatens our national security.”
“My bill would ensure our drugs aren’t produced by companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
Read the full article here