Nearly Half of All Pharmaceuticals Produced Overseas, Many in Unregulated Chinese Factories

Nearly half of all pharmaceutical drugs within the United States were not only produced overseas, but a shocking 81% of the 3,765 foreign factories have never been inspected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Of these mystery drug factories, many are unregulated and stationed in China. To top it all off, the percentage climbs even higher when looking at the active ingredients for pharmaceuticals. About 80% of these active ingredients are created overseas.

The findings show that you really do not know the quality, or perhaps even the full ingredient list, of any pharmaceutical drug that you may be taking. What’s more is that a 2008 GAO report revealed that the FDA took 2 to 5 years to even follow up with foreign plants that had been cited for safety issues. That is if they followed up with the plants at all. Even when the FDA knows that the plants are affecting your safety, they fail to do anything about it — at least for about 2 to 5 years.

FDA Sits Back as Unregulated Factories Kill Americans

What happens as a result of the FDA allowing these factories to go unregulated and pump in pharmaceutical drugs to the United States? Besides slapping a premium price tag on these low quality mystery pills, the end result is a number of preventable deaths. A few reports reveal deaths directly linked to the poor manufacturing processes, but the truth of the matter is that it is nearly impossible to track to the true number of deaths that have occurred as a result of improper pharmaceutical manufacturing.

One such example involves hundreds of Chinese pharmaceutical plants. After creating and shipping a tainted batch of the blood thinner known as heparin to the United States, 81 people died as a result of taking the drug. What’s truly amazing, however, is the number of individuals who die on a yearly basis from overall pharmaceutical deaths. As fatality numbers skyrocket from properly taking pharmaceuticals drugs, the death toll has now outnumbered traffic fatalities according to the most recent statistics.

You may think that many supplements and regular pain relief drugs are exempt from this faulty manufacturing, but that is in fact untrue.

Amazingly, nearly all the aspirin and vitamin C consumed in the U.S. is made in Chinese plants that never see an inspector. Thankfully, a solution does exist. It is important to pick only high quality supplements that utilize food-based ingredients and are devoid of toxic fillers and synthetic ingredients. This is a rule that can be applied to virtually all food products and nutritional items — your health is worth more than saving a few dollars on cheap supplements that could result in extensive medial costs down the road.