Bill Harvey: The drugs don't work

It couldn’t happen here.

I have heard this several times recently in regard to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) tacit support for Donald Trump’s surprise announcement of a revolutionary, innovative, centuries-old unproven ‘cure’ for coronavirus. The FDA has had a sometimes chequered history with regard to the approval of meds and instrumentation in the eye care world, but few have doubted its rigour and scientific integrity prior to this event as much as now. Indeed, the presence of the FDA boss (commissioner Dr Stephen M Hahn) by the side of Trump on the eve of a Republican convention desperately in need of some positive Covid news, lent some significant, and most say misplaced, gravity to the suggestion that the blood products of those previously infected might be a panacea for future disease protection.