cbaker_admin
Fri, 08/28/2020 – 10:30
Three Capitol Hill lawmakers are petitioning the HHS inspector general to investigate whether U.S. nursing homes improperly treated patients with hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 spread through their facilities. Based on state inspection reports and media accounts, the legislators are concerned that the nursing homes acted without patient consent and neglected to disclose serious adverse effects. They also may have operated with regulatory impunity, according to Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-PA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). The trio also reached out to CMS Administrator Seema Verma, inquiring whether the agency had extended any guidance to nursing homes on hydroxychloroquine use at nursing homes and urging it to undertake its own probe. A third letter, to FDA Administrator Stephen Hahn, asked whether the regulator has fielded complaints about use of the drug in this setting or tracked adverse effects among this patient population. FDA issued emergency-use authorization for two anti-malarials in hospitals and/or clinical trials early this spring but was forced to revoke it in June following reports that the drugs caused cardiac complications and other serious adverse effects in COVID-19 patients.
