FDA Experimental Virus Drug Policy Highlights Right to Try Issue

The FDA’s ability to collect data on whether experimental treatments for Covid-19 are effective spotlights pitfalls in a two-year-old controversial drug law called Right to Try.

The agency is letting patients with Covid-19 try drugs that aren’t approved for it through its “compassionate use” pathway. That lets the Food and Drug Administration cull information about which treatments are effective or have potentially dangerous side effects and gives it a hand in how patients are treated.

That’s crucial as scientists race to fine a viable treatment for Covid-19, according to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

The desire is to give patients hope ...