Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that false negatives could give people a misplaced sense of security. Some experts have raised concerns that they could miss people who are infected and who register positive on non-rapid tests, known as PCR tests. The debate centers on the accuracy of the rapid tests. “I don’t want politicians putting pressure on FDA,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.īut when it comes to authorizing more rapid tests, he said, “the scientific community needs to put pressure on FDA.”
Some experts say that while presidents shouldn’t be influencing what goes on at the FDA, scientists can still make their concerns known. That has led to an intense debate over whether the FDA is a roadblock to more widespread at-home testing, or if it is simply doing its job by waiting to make sure there is adequate data supporting the tests and that any accuracy concerns are addressed.Īfter former President Trump drew widespread condemnation from scientists for publicly attacking the FDA over its vaccine reviews, Biden has stressed that he will not put inappropriate pressure on the agency. Many of the cheaper, simpler and more plentiful rapid tests that advocates like Mina are pushing for are not yet authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill released by committee Democrats on Tuesday includes $46 billion for testing, but no funds are specifically set aside for rapid tests. Mina also wrote to the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this month requesting $20 billion for rapid tests in the next relief package.
Mina has spoken to Carole Johnson, the Biden team’s testing coordinator, though he said the conversations so far have been “primarily one way,” and the administration officials have not fully shown their cards on testing plans. But I believe it means that they are willing to try.” He praised the administration for last week’s announcements, while adding: “Both fall quite short of anything that I’ve been discussing. Chan School of Public Health, who has been leading the push for rapid tests, said simpler, cheaper tests are needed to scale up faster and in much higher numbers, to as many as 20 million per day. Michael Mina, a professor at the Harvard T.H. In addition, the White House awarded a $230 million contract to boost the number of rapid tests in circulation, though many of them won’t be available until the second half of the year. The administration said the move will allow 61 million at-home or point-of-care tests to be available by the end of the summer. “The country is well behind where we need to be on testing, particularly the rapid at-home tests that will allow us all to get back to normal activities like work and school,” Tim Manning, the Biden team’s COVID-19 supply coordinator, said at a briefing last week when announcing that the administration will use the Defense Production Act to accelerate manufacturing of the kits. taking quick tests multiple times a week, especially for regular social events like meeting up with friends. While Biden has earned praise for taking some initial steps on production, some experts warn that much more is needed if the goal is to have households across the U.S.
President Biden is raising hopes that he will sharply scale up rapid at-home COVID-19 tests to help control the pandemic, but advocates say far more needs to be done beyond the administration’s early moves.Ī vocal group of health experts has been pushing for months to ramp up production of cheap and simple tests that people can use multiple times a week and get results in a matter of minutes, helping the country safely return to work and school until vaccines are widely available.
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