Tweet
Updated 1 hour ago
President Trump on Saturday baselessly accused the Food and Drug Administration — which he likened to the "deep state, or whoever" — of making it harder for drug companies to distribute coronavirus treatments and vaccines.
Why it matters: Trump's tweet comes on the heels of a policy change by the Department of Health and Human Services to block the FDA's ability to regulate lab-developed tests, including for the coronavirus — which has public health experts worried that unreliable COVID-19 tests could go to market.
The HHS said Friday that it moved to prohibit the FDA from overseeing tests as part of a broader Trump administration review of "duplicative actions and unnecessary policies."
... "FDA might not be able to provide critical advice to test developers or take needed enforcement actions against bad tests" since the HHS took the reins this week.
"We'll see a plethora of DTC Covid tests enter the market, where tests ship directly to consumers and are processed in a central lab operating outside FDA oversight," Gottlieb said.
President Trump on Saturday baselessly accused the Food and Drug Administration — which he likened to the "deep state, or whoever" — of making it harder for drug companies to distribute coronavirus treatments and vaccines.
Why it matters: Trump's tweet comes on the heels of a policy change by the Department of Health and Human Services to block the FDA's ability to regulate lab-developed tests, including for the coronavirus — which has public health experts worried that unreliable COVID-19 tests could go to market.
The HHS said Friday that it moved to prohibit the FDA from overseeing tests as part of a broader Trump administration review of "duplicative actions and unnecessary policies."
... "FDA might not be able to provide critical advice to test developers or take needed enforcement actions against bad tests" since the HHS took the reins this week.
"We'll see a plethora of DTC Covid tests enter the market, where tests ship directly to consumers and are processed in a central lab operating outside FDA oversight," Gottlieb said.