This year, American independence turns 250 years old. We will gather with our families and in town squares across the country to celebrate the freedoms our founders declared—freedom from foreign control, freedom to chart our own course, and the freedom to protect our families.
Yet even as we mark this milestone, a vital form of American independence is quietly slipping away: our freedom to control the medicines we rely on.
The United States built the world's gold-standard biomedical research enterprise. For generations, American scientists working under rigorous safety and validation standards have developed drugs that have saved millions of lives, from cutting-edge cancer therapies to new treatments for complex rare diseases. It was a system the rest of the world envied. Today, that system is eroding — leaving the door wide open for foreign adversaries like China to take the lead.
The numbers tell a sobering story. Just a decade ago, China accounted for just 17 percent of new drugs entering human trials. Today, that figure has jumped to 46 percent, nearly tripling in 10 years. Meanwhile, the United States now imports 75 percent of its essential medicines from overseas. Generics — which fill nine out of every ten prescriptions in America — are particularly exposed, with the overwhelming majority dependent on Chinese manufacturing. We have quietly and incrementally handed our most vital supply chain to our foremost geopolitical rival.
This is not a theoretical risk. Foreign-made generic medications are significantly more likely to cause severe, adverse medical reactions than those made in the U.S. Weaker regulatory standards and a total lack of transparency in overseas research environments directly threaten American patients.
At the same time, U.S. investment in our own research is stalling. Our share of global biomedical funding is now at its lowest point in over 20 years. America once funded as much as 80 percent of the world's biomedical research; today, our share has slipped below half. Compounding the crisis, federal agencies are moving to replace proven research methods with unvalidated alternatives, undermining American companies and consumers. China, meanwhile, continues to build state-funded research infrastructure and expand its global footprint at breakneck speed, with little regard for ethical or validated standards.
For American families, the risk shows up on the shelves and in hospitals. It means the drugs we rely on to treat a child’s rare disease, manage a parent's blood pressure, or fight a sudden infection may have been researched, tested, and manufactured under conditions we cannot see or regulate. It means that a conflict in the South China Sea or a shift in Beijing's export policy could trigger catastrophic drug shortages. It means that the next generation of life-saving breakthroughs for pediatric cancer, conditions with unmet need, and emerging infectious diseases may not carry the safety assurances that only American-led research can provide.
The 250th anniversary of our nation is the precise moment to recommit to a principle our founders would have recognized instantly: true U.S. independence requires freedom from foreign influence in medicine.
It’s time our leaders rebuild and reinvest in U.S.-led biomedical research — fully funding domestic science infrastructure that refuses to eliminate the proven tools and methods that guarantee our safety. Washington must stop the offshoring of drug development and manufacturing by creating real incentives for companies to develop, test, and produce medicines on U.S. soil under trusted oversight. American families must demand the same transparency from our medicines that we already expect in our food and water.
Mothers, healthcare professionals, and advocates have seen firsthand what proven, rigorous U.S. science can achieve. We believe proper oversight and validation of research standards are inalienable for the safety of all Americans.
This Independence Day, let's not just celebrate the rights we inherited. Let's fight for the ones we're at risk of losing — starting with the freedom to trust the medicines that sustain us, ensuring a strong, healthy nation that will thrive for another 250 years.