Opinion: Ethically Accessing Experimental Therapies for COVID-19

In the midst of a pandemic, individual patients are not always the focus of the ethics discussions.

Written byJohn D. Loike and Jennifer E. Miller

| 4 min read

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Normally, it takes about eight years to move a drug through clinical trials and approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. In the current pandemic, patients don’t have this time to wait for COVID-19 therapies. How can we responsibly speed innovation, access to experimental medicines, and FDA approvals during this public health emergency?

There is no shortage of calls to act more quickly in response to this pandemic. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the health emergencies program at the World Health Organization (WHO), for example, urged everyone at a press conference this week: “Be fast. Have no regrets. . . . The virus will always get you if you don’t move quickly. . . . If you need to be right before you move, you will never win. . . . Everyone is afraid of the consequence of error. But the greatest error is ...

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Meet the Author

John D. Loike
John Loike serves as the interim director of bioethics at New York Medical College and as a professor of biology at Touro University. He served previously as the codirector for graduate studies in the Department of Physiology Cellular Biophysics and director of Special Programs in the Center for Bioethics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His biomedical research focuses on how human white blood cells combat infections and cancer. Loike lectures internationally on emerging topics in bioethics, organizes international conferences, and has published more than 150 papers and abstracts in the areas of immunology, cancer, and bioethics. He earned his Ph.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
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Jennifer E. Miller
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