Drug production moved to China

DEAR EDITOR:

Today, most of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in Canada’s drugs originate in China. During the 1980s the U.S. Europe and Japan manufactured most of the world’s APIs. This changed with NAFTA and the birth of generic drugs.

The Mulroney Conservatives saw generic drugs as one of the benefits of the free trade deal. This new demand for cheaper drugs pushed a greater demand for cheaper ingredients.

In 2000, then-U.S. president Bill Clinton welcomed China into the WTO and removed all tariffs on pharmaceuticals from China.

China took to international trade like a duck to water and was able to out-compete American manufactures and flooded the market with cheaper drugs.

One example is penicillin. The over abundance of penicillin coming from China exported to the U.S. made manufacturing penicillin in the U.S. uncompetitive.

The last penicillin manufacturer in the U.S. stopped producing the drug by 2004. China has repeated the practice with other drugs as well.

This is why Canada doesn’t have homegrown vaccines and has to stand in line while countries with their own vaccine manufacturing sectors get inoculated first.

Procurement minister Anita Anand has from the beginning directed every effort to not only secure supplies of vaccines, but also attract the development of home-grown vaccine production. She has been successful and deserves credit.

Jon Peter Christoff, West Kelowna