… and then adding, implicitly or explicitly, “It’s not like they’re real Americans anyway, amirite?” Believe it or not, and ignoring the human toll on the island that you seem to be so willing to do (“I mean, they don’t even talk American!”), it appears that PR is a major manufacturing site for pharmaceuticals that save lives of, yes, other Americans on the mainland.
The products affected are smaller-volume bags of sodium chloride, known as saline, and dextrose. These normally ubiquitous solutions are used to rehydrate patients and to dilute medications from antibiotics to painkillers to cancer drugs. Their manufacturer, Baxter International, has said that “multiple production days” were lost in the wake of Hurricane Maria, and it has set up an allocation system for hospitals based on past purchases.
[…] More than four dozen FDA-approved drugmaking facilities are in Puerto Rico, including ones owned by Pfizer Inc., Merck, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Amgen. The plants produce treatments for cancer and HIV, as well as immunosuppressants for patients with organ transplants. Among the top-selling medications manufactured there are the blood thinner Xarelto and the cholesterol drug Lipitor, according to a report by Healthcare & Life Sciences Review.
While some of the plants were damaged, the delays in getting power and water restored have also been an issue, as well as being able to haul via truck and ship in and out raw materials and the finished pharma products. Hell, given the devastation it’s been hard for workers to come into the plants, those which haven’t had to evacuate.
So, yeah, maybe doing more to help those fellow Americans would actually be helpful to all Americans. Crazy idea, I know, but it just might work.
Some components of your favorite beverages, carbonated and not, are manufactured there. And the companies that moved their manufacturing there did it for tax reasons. The same reasons some companies put their HQs in Texas.
Hmmm. Sudden stray thought of the extent to which pharma prices are jacked up by the Jones Act.
Oh, and if Harry Truman were still alive, he'd offer the advice that you don't want to anger the Puerto Ricans.
+John E. Bredehoft Donald may be doing wonders for the Independence Movement there.
Yesterday Trump complained “We can’t keep military and first responders there forever!” So, perpetual war is OK, but let a part of the United States be utterly devastated, and it’s “Hey! Get up!”
Make America Great Again by shrinking its influence (out of climate accords, out of NAFTA, no treaty with Iran) and by shrinking America itself (Puerto Rico leaves, Guam leaves)?