FDA Approves First COVID Treatment for Young Children Despite Alarming Risks

FDA Approves First COVID Treatment for Young Children Despite Alarming Risks
A vial of the drug remdesivir is visually inspected at a Gilead manufacturing site in March 2020. Gilead Sciences via AP
Xiaoxu Sean Lin
Updated:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first COVID-19 drug for children under the age of 12–remdesivir, which has always been a controversial drug. Now, with its use in infants and young children, is the controversy over remdesivir already gone?

Previously, the drug was only approved to treat adults and adolescents over the age of 12 years old and weighing at least 40 kilograms. On April 25, the FDA expanded remdesivir’s approval to treat newborns and infants over 28 days of age and weighing 7 pounds (3 kg). This is the first FDA-approved COVID-19 treatment for infants and children.
Xiaoxu Sean Lin is an assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College in Middletown, New York. He is also a frequent analyst and commentator for Epoch Media Group, VOA, and RFA. He is a veteran who served as a U.S. Army microbiologist and also a member of Committee on the Present Danger: China.
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