TRENTON, NJ (TIP): Republican Senate candidate Rik Mehta, a pharmacist and former FDA consumer safety officer from New Jersey, announced a plan to force drug manufacturers to label their products’ country of origin. Mehta is seeking to replace failed presidential candidate Cory Booker as Senator from New Jersey.

“Americans have a right to know where their medicine comes from especially when nearly all other products are labeled with the country it was made in,” Mehta, a pharmacist, said. “I can look at products on my body, like my shirt and shoes and know exactly where it was made, but the same doesn’t hold true for things that go in our body, like our prescription drugs. That makes no sense.”

Under current Food and Drug Administration regulations, the last place a given drug was manufactured is considered its place of origin.

“These bizarre and conflicting laws and regulations that govern how to label products with their country of origin has allowed companies to profit from foreign drug manufacturing while hiding their supply chain from the American people for too long,” said Mehta. “American doctors and pharmacists should be able to inform patients on not only what ingredients are in their drugs, but where those ingredients were made.”

In the public sector, Rik worked at the United States Food and Drug Administration as a Consumer Safety Officer to advance policies to expedite and increase access to quality, affordable drugs and health care. He also enforced against pharmaceutical companies taking millions of illegal prescription opioids off the market.