HEALTH CARE ROULETTE

The United States is in the midst of multiple, simultaneous pandemics. In COVID-19, the world is experiencing its worst public health disaster and infectious global pandemic since the Flu of 1918. Certain risk factors, including diabetes, are associated with negative health outcomes in COVID-19 patients. HEALTH CARE ROULETTE is a MUST-READ for anyone who has a chronic health condition. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, is disproportionately affecting the elderly and the poor, both of which are also high-risk groups for diabetes. The elderly are typically on Medicare, while the poor are usually covered by Medicaid (welfare). Additionally, there is a huge pool of 1099 self-employed independent contract workers who have no health insurance whatsoever. Poor minorities and the elderly, particularly those with comorbid conditions such as diabetes and asthma, are being wiped out by COVID-19 at higher rates than the general population (ADA, 2020; Galvin; 2020; Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, April 2020). We can observe a correlation between prescription drug cost unaffordability, medication nonadherence among elderly and poor minority populations, and resulting negative health outcomes. There has been well-documented media coverage of the disproportionately of COVID-19 deaths among African Americans, Latinos, and the elderly.

Over 80% of Active Drug Ingredients and Finished Pharmaceutical Products come from overseas. This includes the drugs in your medicine cabinet! The FDA is our protector and savior, but the FDA has little authority outside of the United States. Overseas generic pharmaceutical manufacturers do not follow Good Manufacturing Practices and often fabricate their quality assurance data, flooding U.S. pharmacies with deadly non-bioequivalent medications that have already killed many. The prevalence of drug recalls provides ample evidence that many of these inferior generic drugs are adulterated and misbranded by FDA standards. These imported drugs are putting your personal health, our nation's heath and our national security at extreme risk. Under the stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s pharmaceutical manufacturing came to a grinding halt. India, which depends on China for most of its pharmaceutical ingredients, also stopped making and exporting drugs. The United States is in a precarious situation created by our dependence on inferior foreign-made nonbioequivalent drugs. As factories in China and India shut down from the coronavirus, US pharmacies quickly lost access to innumerable pharmaceuticals, including many critical blood pressure pills, Alzheimer’s disease tablets (donepezil, for example), cholesterol medications (statins), and antibiotics. Virtually all cephalosporin antibiotics, vitamin C, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and hydrocortisone originate in China. Penicillin on US pharmacy shelves is made in India, as well as losartan, valacyclovir, ursodiol, fenofibrate, montelukast, pantoprazole, fluoxetine, amlodipine, and warfarin. Warfarin is an extremely dangerous narrow therapeutic index (NTI) anticoagulant drug that can easily cause massive uncontrolled bleeding, especially if it is nonbioequivalent to the innovator product. HEALTH CARE ROULETTE is a MUST-READ for anyone taking prescription drugs. Drug shortages are caused by unavailablity of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) or raw materials, manufacturer discontinuation of drug production, recalls and regulatory actions, increase in demand and natural disasters that may interrupt manufacturing and/or distribution. Overseas drug manufacturers are notorious for inadequate quality control, including altering batch records regarding where the drugs and raw materials were produced, as well as falsifying all information relative to producers, manufacturing, distributors, and importers. Furthermore, with at least 80% of API being manufactured overseas, particularly in China and India, the US drug supply has been proven to be vulnerable to supply chain distruptions caused by COVID-19. American consumers and patients are facing three obstacles when it comes to prescription drugs: 1)The drugs they need must be available and affordable. 2) The drugs they need must be safe 3)The drugs need to efficacious (The drugs need to work). Adulerated and misbranded drugs from China are not safe and not efficacious. Most patients at the pharmacy counter have no idea that their drugs are originating from all over the world. In many cases, the pharmacist does not know, either, because the stock bottles of medication make mention of the distributor but do not always disclose the identity or location of the drug manufacturer. Despite the fact that these drugs are produced in faraway lands, with no appreciation of good manufacturing practices (GMP), we literally cannot live without them. The worldwide shortage of drugs precipitated by the coronavirus should be sounding our wake-up call: America needs to reclaim its generic pharmaceutical industry and stop being held hostage by the undiversified and insecure global supply chain. We must never be caught off guard again! Many example are cited to back up the claims and direct links are provided to the references cited. HEALTH CARE ROULETTE is a MUST-READ to avoid becoming a casualty of The Great Generic Fraud.
When patients cannot afford to take their medications due to cost, adherence decreases. Morbidity (disability) and mortality (death) subsequently increase. Desperate senior citizens on fixed incomes, as well as diabetics that cannot afford their insulin, unwittingly turn to Canada and the internet as cheaper sources of medications. Just because a drug may appear to ship from Canada, it is very likely a counterfeit knockoff, concocted in a faraway land by some guy in his bathtub, with an oar. The small investment in this book just might save your life by exposing the potentially deadly pitfalls of taking medications that have intentionally circumvented the protective safety net of the United States Food and Drug Administration.