AFP: FDA Approval of Rapid At-Home Diagnostic Test a Step in the Right Direction

Dec 15, 2020 by AFP

Arlington, Va. – Following the announcement today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization for the first over-the-counter fully at-home diagnostic test for COVID-19, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) praised the decision and urged the agency to continue pursuing reforms that will allow America to recover stronger.

AFP Senior Health Policy Fellow Dean Clancy issued the following statement:

“Although long overdue, the FDA’s move to authorize at-home diagnostic tests without a doctor’s prescription is a welcome and important step toward shortening the pandemic and saving lives. Frequent rapid-testing will enable us to know whether we are contagious and give us a critical piece of information necessary to get our lives back to some semblance of normal. With widespread vaccination still months away, America needs a bridge strategy to slow the spread of the virus and save even more lives while we await population-wide immunity. Today’s announcement empowers individuals to take responsibility for their health and gives us a vital tool that’s been missing for too long. In addition to easing testing restrictions, the FDA should also speed up vaccine approvals, remove the regulatory barriers around promising but not-yet-approved therapies, and allow manufacturers to share valid scientific data with prescribers about promising off-label uses of FDA-approved therapies.”