Report: U.S. drug shortage increased nearly 30% from 2021 and 2022

A new Senate report finds that shortages of critical prescription drugs spiked by nearly 30% between 2021 and 2022, marking a five-year high. That report was published Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The biggest concern, according to the report, is an over-reliance on China for ingredients, posing a national security risk and leaving millions of Americans vulnerable. “When we are basically beholden to the Chinese for a high percentage of all of the critical ingredients that go into basically every drug we use here [that] certainly gives the Chinese a great deal of leverage,” says Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Senate panel that produced the report.