Ricketts Comments on Sterile Solution Shortages Worsened by Hurricane Helene

OMAHA, NE – Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts urged prioritizing domestic manufacturing after hearing from Nebraska hospitals and patients unable to move forward with procedures due to sterile solution shortages. Baxter supplies approximately 60% of the U.S.’ IV fluids and suffered significant damage from Hurricane Helene to their manufacturing facility in North Carolina. I.V. fluids were already experiencing a shortage before the storm.

“Nebraska rural hospitals are being forced to cancel surgeries due to IV solution supply-chain issues exasperated by Hurricane Helene’s impact on Baxter facilities in North Carolina,” Ricketts said. “While the FDA is taking steps to mitigate shortages with temporary importation sources, we should’ve never reached this crisis level. The FDA provided notice on their own website years ago that shortages of these products existed. Yet here we are without an increase to domestic production. Instead, the FDA has Americans relying on other countries, primarily China, to get the critical medical supplies that they need. The pandemic was supposed to be the wake-up call that America can’t be reliant on China for our medical supplies. That we’re back in the same situation a few years later is a direct reflection of the Biden-Harris administration’s failures.”