The Pentagon Wants to Root Out Shoddy Drugs. The FDA Is In Its Way.

One morning in October, US Army Colonel Victor Suarez finished his usual morning workout — a 32-mile bike ride — and then sat down in his home office in Frederick, Maryland. When he opened his email, his stomach dropped.

Suarez spent his career getting medicines to military hospitals and combat troops, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had recently sought out an independent lab to assess the quality of those drugs, in large part because he doubted the US Food and Drug Administration’s ability to police a supply chain now dominated by low-cost manufacturers in India and China. His inbox offered a glimpse of the first batch of test results.