Regulatory roadblocks are keeping Americans from getting the rapid, responsive healthcare we need — and the saga of a Seattle-based diagnostic testing program is just the latest example of how red tape is tying our hands in the fight against COVID-19.
Recently, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators ordered a halt to the Seattle Coronavirus Network Assessment (SCAN), a program that aims to test patients for exposure to COVID-19. Promoted by Bill Gates, it had already been authorized by the state and included technical assistance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Yet the FDA shut it down because it had not received bureaucratic authorization to share the result of self-administered tests with program participants.
You read that right: The FDA was fine with testing — and nobody claims the test is unreliable or dangerous — but without bureaucratic approval, the SCAN program may not tell patients the results of their self-administered tests. Sadly, this kind of FDA red tape is typical of our increasingly obsolete system of medical regulation.
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