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Thomas: A lesson from coronavirus

File photo by Jacquelyn Martin of The Associated Press / Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signage is seen through a bus stop at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, in Silver Spring, Md., on the FDA grounds. Health officials reported the first U.S. drug shortage tied to the viral outbreak that is disrupting production in China.
File photo by Jacquelyn Martin of The Associated Press / Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signage is seen through a bus stop at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, in Silver Spring, Md., on the FDA grounds. Health officials reported the first U.S. drug shortage tied to the viral outbreak that is disrupting production in China. File photo by Jacquelyn Martin of The Associated Press / Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signage is seen through a bus stop at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, in Silver Spring, Md., on the FDA grounds. Health officials reported the first U.S. drug shortage tied to the viral outbreak that is disrupting production in China.

By Cal Thomas 3 min read

If anything good can come from the coronavirus pandemic, it is the revelation of America’s overreliance on China, especially when it comes to drugs.

Interviewed by NBC News, retired Brig. Gen. John Adams said, “Basically, we’ve outsourced our entire industry to China. That is a strategic vulnerability.”

Adams spent his 30-year military career as an intelligence officer, a military attache in South Korea and deputy U.S. military representative to NATO. He told the network he thinks China knows “exactly what they’re doing and they’re incredibly good strategists. They select their industries for the future, and they’ve got a plan.”

China has threatened to restrict drug exports to the U.S. following President Donald Trump’s accusation that the regime withheld news of the virus, which surfaced in Wuhan last December.

The New York Times reports, “Chinese pharmaceutical companies have supplied more than 90% of U.S. antibiotics, vitamin C, ibuprofen and hydrocortisone, as well as 70% of acetaminophen and 40% to 45% of heparin in recent years, according to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.”