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Photo above - Union boss Frank Sobota prepares to unload a container ship in Baltimore, during season 2 of "The Wire" . . .

I ran into an interesting warning earlier this week. The op-ed writer was convinced that a dockworkers strike (45,000 longshoremen) was inevitable. His advice: If your car needs work, get it done now. Parts delivery will soon be cut off. Routine stuff like engine belts, oil filters, OEM wheels and tires, etc. I was all set to rush out and get my cracked rear window replaced, then I read a different article, below. We could run out of medicines.

Thankfully the article DOESN’T say which ones. Which would only cause people to rush out and buy up everything they can get their hands on. Remember what happened during Covid 19, when media warnings resulted in thousands of grannies filling their shopping carts with paper towels and toilet paper, leaving the shelves bare? And America is already suffering from an Ozempic shortage. A dock strike might cause people to gain weight. I don’t know how the legitimate diabetes patients are making out today, because pudgy people are buying up so much of the medicine.

The same thing happened with Covid 19 masks. Doctor Nick Riviera (not his real name) made appearances on TV, telling people to mask up. In fact, he told people to wear 2 or 3 masks at once, just to be safe (this is absolutely true). The result? Store sold out masks instantly. Hospitals (nurses and doctors) ran out. Then Amazon began hawking “approved N95 masks” online. Made in China. Testing by labs showed that 90% of these masks didn’t come close to meeting the safety standards.

The same thing is likely to happen if medicines can’t be offloaded at US ports. Cheap imitations and counterfeits will show up. From multiple sources . . . I don’t want to just pick on China, even though they are pretty nimble in these situations. Anyone want to pay 10X the listed price for a fake drug? If you’re sick, you probably would.

This is NOT a rant about dockworkers. Even though their strike seems timed for maximum impact during the final weeks of the 2024 election. If a guy with a screwdriver and pair of pliers can make $140,000 on a UAW assembly line, why not a crane operator or driver at the port of Baltimore, dockworkers are probably asking themselves.

A better question might be . . . if America can discuss energy independence and food self sufficiency, why not essential medicines too? Why are so many of them arriving on slow boats from wherever? I couldn’t give two hoots about where my car’s oil filter comes from. But my mom’s cancer drugs are a different matter.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Port strike could delay delivery of critical medications: It could be 'devastating,' doctors say | The New York Ledger (thenyledger.com)