{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-kaine-introduce-legislation-to-help-address-drug-shortages-and-supply-chain-vulnerabilities", "Cotton, Kaine Introduce Legislation to Help Address Drug Shortages and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities", "2024-12-04", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "AR", "Tom Cotton", "C001095", "www.cotton.senate.gov", "cotton", "https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE\n\nContact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353\n\nDecember 4, 2024\n\nCotton, Kaine Introduce Legislation to Help Address Drug Shortages and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) today introduced the Protecting Our Essential Medicines Act, legislation to help address drug shortages and vulnerabilities in the drug supply chain by requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to maintain a list of the country of origin of certain critical drugs marketed in the United States.\n\n\u201cAmericans deserve to know where their life-saving medicines come from. This legislation requires greater transparency in the sourcing of critical drugs, helping to protect patients and strengthen trust in our healthcare system,\u201d said Senator Cotton.\n\n\u201cWhile we\u2019ve taken steps in recent years to increase domestic manufacturing of prescription drugs\u2014including in Petersburg, Virginia\u2014we need to do more. I\u2019m glad to join Senator Cotton in introducing this legislation to help address drug shortages and decrease our reliance on pharmaceutical products manufactured in other countries,\u201d said Senator Kaine.\n\nText of the legislation may be found here.\n\nThe Protecting Our Essential Medicines Act would:\n\nDirect the HHS Secretary to establish an interagency task force in consultation with FDA, CDC, DOD, DHS, ASPR, CBP, and ODNI to identify and maintain a list of drugs that are:\n\nCritical to the health and safety of U.S. consumers;\n\nThose for which a shortage would have adverse health outcomes on patients with chronic conditions; and\n\nCountermeasures classified as qualified pandemic or epidemic products.\n\nDirect the task force to create two subsequent lists \u2013 one public and one confidential.\n\nThe public list would describe the top three countries from which the U.S. imports each drug.\n\nThe confidential list would describe drugs that are produced exclusively in China.\n\nEarlier this month, the senators introduced the End Drug Shortages Act, bipartisan, bicameral legislation to help reduce the prevalence and severity of drug shortages.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T22:13:55Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-kaine-introduce-legislation-to-help-address-drug-shortages-and-supply-chain-vulnerabilities"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7050810381770134, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}