Securing America's Medicine Cabinet

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have spoken several times about the vulnerabilities in our pharmaceutical supply chain and again encourage my colleagues to support the bipartisan Securing America's Medicine Cabinet Act--or SAM-C Act--which I am sponsoring alongside my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Menendez.

Without intervention, the FDA expects the pharmaceutical industry will continue to rely on Chinese companies to make the active pharmaceutical ingredients--or the APIs--that are necessary for so many of our prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The threat it poses to our supply chain is real.

On February 27, 2020, the FDA announced the shortage of one drug that is used to treat patients with coronavirus. They attributed the shortage to difficulties obtaining the API from a site in China. That site has been affected by--guess what--coronavirus.

We do not need to remain vulnerable. We need to realize that we are dealing with someone who has not been transparent. They have hidden information from us. They are causing shortages of drugs and vaccines and antibiotics. It is time for us to learn from these lessons. If we ignore them, we do so at our own peril.

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