What You Should Know About Compassionate Use

Here’s how the system has evolved through the decades

The complicated history behind how people with Covid-19 can access experimental drugs. During the coronavirus pandemic, many people with severe cases of Covid-19 have been able to get access to experimental drugs through a regulatory pathway called “compassionate use.” This system dates back decades, and significantly evolved during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. As medical and science writer Ron Winslow reports for Elemental, compassionate use requests can “pose daunting ethical challenges that have triggered fierce debates in boardrooms, among legislators and regulators, in scientific journals, and on social media.” Read the full story below.

Dying People Can Access Experimental Drugs for Covid-19, But It’s Complicated