Should you take drugs made only in the U.S.?

It’s unrealistic in this age of globalization. About 40 percent of the medications Americans use everyday are made outside the U.S. And two of the world's leading drug exporters are India and China, each with about 500 drug manufacturing plants registered with the FDA.



Plus, when you consider that about 80 percent of all raw drug ingredients used to make medications we take in the U.S. come from other countries, it is very difficult to know where all the components of a medication come from, regardless of where it was manufactured.

“These days it can be very hard to track where your drugs come from,” said Barbara Young, Pharm.D, editor of consumer-medication information for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. “There’s not even always a straight line from the manufacturer. Sometimes drugs are repackaged and rebranded along the way.”

Costco told us that it would try to help patients who want to source their medications from a certain company or country, though prices may vary according to manufacturer cost. But many times it might be difficult, if not impossible, to accommodate such a request, according to Victor Curtis, R.Ph, senior vice president of pharmacy at Costco Wholesale. "Pharmaceutical manufacturers don't disclose the country of origin on the product's label," Curtis said. "And, if contacted, some will disclose what country the medication came from and some will not."