FDA authorizes fourth coronavirus antibody test in the US

US regulators gave emergency authorization to a fourth test for coronavirus antibodies in an effort to help health authorities identify who has already been infected and may have developed immunity to the virus on Wednesday.  Mt Sinai Health System, in New York, was the first lab in the US to announce it had developed such … Read more

FDA gives emergency green light to blood filter for treating coronavirus

US regulators have given emergency use permission for a device to filter coronavirus patients’ blood in an effort to combat the devastating effects of severe inflammation.  Doctors believe that many of those who die of coronavirus die as a result of the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ – a deluge of inflammation meant to help fight the … Read more

FDA authorizes the first test that can detect coronavirus antibodies in the blood

FDA gives emergency approval to first coronavirus blood test that can detect when people have become immune to the infection amid hopes they can return to work and ‘jump start the economy’ The FDA has issued an Emergency Use Authorization for the first coronavirus antibody test The test, developed by medical device company Cellex Inc, … Read more

FDA urges patients to keep taking contaminated blood pressure drugs

FDA urges patients to keep taking contaminated blood pressure drugs despite cancer risk, amid global shortage Drugs containing valsartan, losartan and irbesartan are some of the most commonly prescribed medications for high blood pressure Some one in three Americans may need blood pressure medication to avoid heart attack and stroke  Pills from nearly 30 manufacturers … Read more

Companies selling at-home coronavirus tests must STOP shipping their kits, FDA warns

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned American companies against shipping at-home coronavirus testing kits, despite relaxing its approval process for diagnostics for the virus sweeping the nation and globe. It comes after several companies, including Silicon Valley biotech start-ups like Nurx and Carbon Health began developing their own at-home sample collection sets. … Read more

FDA approves use of plasma from recovered coronavirus patients to treat the sickest patients

The US Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first treatment in the US for the coronavirus that has infected more than 50,000 Americans: blood plasma from people who have cleared the infection.  Blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients is rich in antibodies their immune system has developed to fight the infection.  China began … Read more

US coronavirus: Trump asks FDA to immediately approve malaria drug and antibiotic combo

Dr. Tony Fauci said on Saturday that President Donald Trump was ‘talking about hope’ when he bragged that malaria drugs could be a ‘gift from god’ to cure the coronavirus and not whether the medication ‘actually works.’ ‘The president is talking about hope for people and it’s not an unreasonable thing to hope for people,’ … Read more

Trump announces anti-malaria drug is approved to treat coronavirus – but FDA corrects him

The US is fast-tracking the anti-malarial drug chloroquine for use as a treatment against the new coronavirus, President Donald Trump said Thursday. ‘They’ve gone through the approval process – it’s been approved. They took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription.’ … Read more

FDA announces new food labels that have nutritional information for eating the whole package

FDA’s new nutritional labels require food packaging to say how many calories, fats, sugars and carbs are in a ‘serving’ AND the whole container The new food labels will have dual columns, one will nutritional information for one serving and another for the whole packages Manufacturers will also be required to include added sugars on the … Read more

Women on female Viagra can now drink alcohol, FDA declares

Women who use the female libido pill, Addyi, no longer need to avoid alcohol, regulators have declared. Previously, Addyi came with a warning to stop drinking two hours before taking the pill, or to skip the pill if they’d had a few drinks. But on Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration found studies conducted … Read more