FDA Made the Right Call on Covid Plasma Treatment
The agency has been accused of playing politics in approving transfusions from coronavirus survivors. It was following the science.
Science.
Photographer: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg
Ordinarily, a new medical treatment is approved only after at least one large-scale, randomized controlled trial shows it to be effective without being harmful. Yet at times — and notably during epidemics — evidence can mount that a treatment is safe and effective before we have that final evidence. We think this is the case with Covid-19 and convalescent plasma.
On Sunday, the Food and Drug administration gave a limited, emergency authorization for the inpatient use of convalescent plasma, which is donated by people who have recovered from Covid-19. The decision set off a media firestorm, with politicians, public-health officials and medical professionals insisting that the Donald Trump administration was playing politics with science.