Health security

Reports: China has monopoly on medical supplies and drugs - could "shut down US hospitals in months"

Some experts are saying the coronavirus situation has exposed a Chinese secret – essentially a monopoly on U.S. medical supplies and prescription drugs.

The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the United States’ dangerous dependence on China for pharmaceutical and medical supplies, including an estimated 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to produce drugs in the United States.

....The economic repercussions of the coronavirus reveal the dangers of allowing one country to have a near monopoly on global manufacturing, David Dayen explains in an article at the American Prospect:

China is a source of not only finished goods, but also of input parts and raw materials.

A substantial number of the materials needed for defense and electronic systems come from China, and that nation is “the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty chemicals,” according to a recent Defense Department report.

Rare earth minerals, which are critical to electronics, are largely mined in China.

As a result, Chinese disruptions don’t just hit Chinese manufacturing, they hit everyone’s.