Opinion: India’s drug regulator has failed the pandemic stress test. The U.S. should take notice
The Covid-19 pandemic has served as a stress test for drug regulators across the world. India’s has failed.
Amid the desperate scrambles for therapeutics and vaccines to stem the havoc caused by the pandemic, drug regulators have had to resist tremendous political pressure to approve unproven therapies. Rick Bright, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the federal agency that helps secure the U.S. from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and emerging infectious disease threats, left his position, alleging in his whistleblower complaint that he faced political pressure to allow the distribution of hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug for treating Covid-19 that had been championed by President Trump.
