What began as warnings from a handful of scientists, whistleblowers and patients has now become the subject of ongoing congressional scrutiny.In the fifth major
by LISA FLETCHER, ANDREA NEJMAN, NATHAN AARON | Spotlight on AmericaWhat began as warnings from a handful of scientists, whistleblowers and patients has now become the subject of ongoing congressional scrutiny.
In the fifth major hearing in the past year, senators heard testimony from several of the same voices Spotlight on America has featured during its more than two-year investigation into the safety and quality of some foreign-manufactured generic drugs used by tens of millions of Americans. Among them was Adam Clark-Joseph, who says his concerns about generic drug quality began with his own prescriptions. Valisure co-founder Adam Clark-Joseph began testing medications after experiencing repeated problems with his own prescriptions.
He later helped build the independent laboratory focused on identifying quality issues in pharmaceutical products. Photo: SBG “I first encountered a bad batch of medicine when I was 25,” Clark-Joseph testified.
“After a refill, I suddenly fell ill and after my doctor identified the problem, he told me that sometimes you just get a bad batch. ”“I discovered that they were just massively underdosed,” he said.
“So that was the last straw. ” Clark-Joseph and scientist David Light went on to found Valisure, an independent laboratory focused on systematically testing pharmaceutical products. Adam Clark-Joseph and David Light co-founded Valisure in 2015 after Clark-Joseph's personal experiences with poorly performing prescription drugs. The independent testing lab has become a leading voice in the debate over generic drug quality and pharmaceutical transparency.
Photo: David Light Their latest findings examined 25 generic drugs from more than 350 suppliers. According to Valisure, 72% of the products tested received a green rating, indicating no significant concerns. But 15% received a red rating, signaling concerns about manufacturing quality, dissolution performance or the presence of contaminants such as toxic metals or nitrosamines, compounds linked to cancer. Nitrosamines have been linked to a series of major drug recalls in recent years.
The findings are part of a broader effort to bring greater transparency to drug quality — a concern that has become increasingly prominent as more prescription drugs are manufactured overseas. The concerns raised at the hearing echo issues Spotlight on America has documented throughout its investigations, from FDA inspection findings overseas to patients who believe they were harmed by poor-quality medications.
In written testimony submitted to the Senate, Clark-Joseph also pointed senators to one of our recent investigations examining whether poor-quality foreign-made drugs could pose a risk to U.S. troops.
“I thank you for convening this hearing on this topic that impacts all of us,” whistleblower Dinesh Thakur told senators. Whistleblower Dinesh Thakur helped expose misconduct at generic drug manufacturer Ranbaxy more than two decades ago. He told senators many of the same quality-control concerns he identified then still persist today.
Photo: SBG Twenty years ago, Thakur helped expose wrongdoing at Ranbaxy Laboratories, one of the largest generic drug manufacturers in the world, in what became one of the most significant generic drug fraud cases in history.
“The FDA went back five years later and found missing raw data,” Thakur testified. “The FDA conducted another inspection in 2023. The FDA conducted another inspection last year. Little seems to have changed since I first turned whistleblower 20 years ago, and that should worry us.
” For patient advocate and heart transplant recipient Lisa Salberg, the issue has never been about inspection reports or Senate hearings - it's been about whether patients can trust the medicines they depend on. Heart transplant recipient and patient advocate Lisa Salberg says concerns about generic drug quality led her to switch back to a brand-name anti-rejection medication. She testified before the senate committee that "my life literally depends on it.
" Photo: SBGSalberg told the committee she was getting generic anti-rejection drugs after her heart transplant. When she began experiencing serious symptoms, she had the drugs tested and discovered they were made with either too much or too little of the active ingredient, leaving her open to both rejection and sudden cardiac events. Because insurance won't pay for a reliable, name-brand drug, Salberg has to pay out of pocket.
“So now I pay $120 a month for my name-brand Prograf because I can’t trust generics,” she testified. “My life literally depends upon it. ” Salberg and Valisure co-authored an analysis estimating that the economic impact of low-quality generic drugs used to treat just a handful of chronic diseases could reach $238 billion over the next decade through hospitalizations, heart attacks, strokes and other severe medical events associated with treatment failure.
Valisure, an independent drug-testing laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, evaluates medications for potential quality concerns that may not be detected through traditional oversight. Photo: SBG Critics argue that while the FDA inspects manufacturing facilities and reviews company data, medications are not routinely and independently tested throughout the supply chain, allowing quality problems to go undetected until patients report adverse events or regulators uncover problems during inspections.
“We need to inspect every batch of medication brought into the United States before it hits anybody’s system,” she said. Approximately 90-percent of prescription drugs taken in the US are generic. The hearing comes as lawmakers consider several proposals aimed at improving transparency and accountability in the generic drug supply chain.
Among them are bipartisan efforts to require greater disclosure of where drugs and their ingredients are manufactured and new proposals focused on drug quality and supply chain oversight. If you or someone you know has experienced issues related to improperly made generic drugs, we'd like to hear from youA teenage girl died after being pulled from the water at Lake Sammamish State Park on Sunday, according to Eastside Fire & Rescue.
Eastside Fire & Rescue said itIn July 2025, President Donald Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law. It’s estimated to cut federal Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over the next decadeHuman skeletal bones found inside a sleeping bag in a remote section of a Washington park nearly three decades ago were identified as a missing Hawaii man. A military aircraft crashed near Rimrock Lake on Saturday, sparking a wildfire that prompted a response from local and federal firefighting agencies.
With most of western Washington sitting under a heat advisory through Tuesday morning, many people are turning to rivers, lakes, and beaches for heat relief. Th
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