Flores Introduces Legislation to Rebuild a Safe, Secure, Transparent American Medical Supply Chain

I recently introduced H.R. 6885, the "Safe and Secure Medicine Supply for Hardworking Americans Act".  This legislation aims to rebuild a safe, secure, transparent medical supply chain for hardworking American families.

The severity of the COVID-19 outbreak and deliberate deception by the Chinese government about its origins serve as an urgent wakeup call for American families and policymakers.  These events make a compelling case that we cannot depend on insecure sources when it comes to the health and safety of American families and those of our allies.  In addition to the current medical supply chain risks, there have been numerous recent occurrences of tainted prescription drugs being imported from shoddy manufacturers, principally Chinese.  Some of these tainted medicines even include carcinogenic chemicals like byproducts used to produce rocket fuel.

All of these factors make it obvious that some foreign pharmaceutical supply chains dramatically increase the risk of intellectual property theft, interference by foreign governments, tainted drugs, and significant health care risks for American families.  This is a national security risk and it is imperative that we begin to move the production of life-saving products away from risky overseas facilities back to the United States.  This action will help restore America's leadership in the development and production of innovative and lifesaving medicines, and that our drugs meet the rigorous standards implemented by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The legislation includes tariffs on imported drugs from China and certain other countries, incentives to rebuild a robust American pharmaceutical supply chain, substantial penalties for the importation of tainted pharmaceuticals from foreign sources, and improved supply chain transparency for American health care consumers and policymakers.

H.R. 6885 is a critical first step to rebuild a safe, secure, transparent drug supply for America and its allies, and I hope for quick bipartisan consideration of this important legislation."

The Safe and Secure Medicine Supply for Hardworking Americans Act is designed to achieve three critical objectives:

• Provide strategic incentives to rebuild the U.S. domestic pharmaceutical and medical device supply chain

• by encouraging companies to manufacture their products and key active pharmaceutical ingredients (API's) in the U.S. and
• by disincentivizing the importation of drugs from insecure sources, particularly China.

• Improves the safety of pharmaceutical products for Americans by enacting significant civil penalties on both foreign facilities that manufacture contaminated medicines or API's as well as entities that import these medicines or API's.
• Provides pharmaceutical supply chain transparency by requiring the FDA to create a publicly available registry indicating the countries of origin for APIs and FDA approved drugs.