Ex-Trump DHS official sounds alarm over national security threat within critical US industry

President Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is sounding the alarm about China infiltrating America’s healthcare systems. 

Concern about China’s ability to infiltrate United States technology was underscored by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last week between four state attorneys general and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, aimed at ramping up protections against Chinese infiltration of communications equipment and services utilized by the United States. 

On Monday, the Protecting America Initiative (PAI), a conservative nonprofit aimed at fighting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts “to sabotage America,” launched a campaign to highlight the nation’s vulnerability to China as it relates to medical technology. 

Earlier this year, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both warned of a “backdoor” in a popular brand of patient monitoring devices. CISA found the so-called backdoor allowed the device to download remote files and send them to an IP address associated with a Chinese university. All schools in China operate under a law requiring them to support national intelligence work when called upon.

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Former DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf, who served during Donald Trump’s first term, is sounding the alarm about the United States’ reliance on Chinese medical devices.  (Costfoto/NurPhoto and MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Americans rely on their doctors who take an oath to keep us safe, and first, do no harm. But when critical medical devices are made by Chinese companies, that puts our safety at risk. Chinese medical devices open the door for the CCP to access sensitive health data. President Trump and his administration always put America First and will safeguard our patients and our privacy from Beijing’s infiltration,” PAI Senior Advisor Chad Wolf told Fox News Digital. “It’s time to remove Chinese medical devices from U.S. hospitals and close the data backdoor, because patient privacy and national security are non‑negotiable.”

In June, Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took legal action against the Chinese medical device manufacturers probed by the FDA and CISA, accusing the company of selling “compromised” medical devices that allegedly include a “backdoor” that bad actors can manipulate. 

In addition to patient data and privacy concerns, Uthmeier was also concerned about the medical device manufacturer, and those distributing its products, selling patient health monitors as approved by the FDA and other international standards, even though they were not.

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Florida Attorney General took legal action against Chinese medical device maker Contec earlier this year for allegedly selling compromised devices with backdoors that transmit patient data to China. (Getty Images)

China’s expanding presence in American medical supply chains has also been a concern among experts.

“China’s growing role within the U.S. medical device supply chains is largely due to the combination of Beijing’s industrial policy and the shifting landscape of American healthcare,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. focusing on foreign affairs and national security, wrote in an October report.

“The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated that in 2019, 9.2 percent of U.S.-imported pharmaceuticals and medical equipment came from China — a percentage that ‘likely understates’ American reliance on China for medical products, NIH warned,” the report continues. “This understatement is in part due to the complex nature of medical supply chains — China is both a supplier of raw materials used in medical products and the final point of assembly for goods bound for the United States, obscuring its reach into the American medical system. This percentage also does not account for the value-add or criticality of these goods, particularly those related to biodefense and managing long-term acute health issues.”

The national flags of the United States and China flutter at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)

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FDD claims that China has “exploited” the United State’s “reliance” on it by selling and exporting deliberately compromised technology, leading to doctors “unwittingly and unwillingly” playing “Russian roulette with patient treatment plans.”