Reading China Rx - Part One

The background is rich with details, and manages to inform without losing you in the numbers.

Basically, this is a multi-year failure of government. Starting in the Clinton administration, those in charge in Washington got the "brilliant" idea of encouraging China to take over large sectors of the American economy, by:

• Offering offshore JIT (Just in Time) response to need.
• Undercutting the price per unit for meds, often with the encouragement and financial support of the Chinese government.
• Engaging in price-fixing, again, with the active support of government - sometimes, with their specific orders.
• Under the pressure of the competition, many American manufacturers went out of business, or sent the orders overseas.
• After their American competition was eliminated, the Chinese raised the prices - often by amounts that many would consider "gouging".
• Under continual pressure to compete, Chinese companies often took cost-cutting measures that led to contaminated or improperly prepared meds and food.
• People, and their pets, died. The FDA and other sectors of the government reacted with weak punishments - if any.
• Media ignored the scandals - they still do.

The American companies involved in this suffered little lasting damage to their reputation - Pfizer was one of them. The pet food adulteration that result in illness and death to many American pets caused more of an outrage than those that killed American people.

Rinse, repeat. Over and over.

You can read the Introduction to this series here.