In Defense Of Coronavirus Testing Strategy, Administration Cited Retracted Study
Post updated 8:15 a.m. March 27, to reflect that the abstract in PubMed has been marked retracted.
When asked why the United States didn't import coronavirus tests when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran into difficulty developing its own, government officials have frequently questioned the quality of the foreign-made alternatives.
But NPR has learned that the key study they point to was retracted just days after it was published online in early March.
Top officials in the Trump administration have alluded to this study, including Dr. Deborah Birx, who coordinates the White House coronavirus task force. "It doesn't help to put out a test where 50% or 47% are false positives," she said at a White House briefing on March 17, explaining why health officials didn't accept tests from other countries.
Food and Drug Commissioner Stephen Hahn cited the figure as well during an interview on Morning Edition on Friday.
"It's really important to understand, getting an accurate and reliable test on the market's important," he told host David Greene. "Our team can provide you with an abstract that was recently published in the literature about a test that was performed in another country that demonstrated a 47% false positive rate. Now, think about that, David. What that means is that if you had a positive test, it was pretty close to a flip of a coin as to whether it was real or not."
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/26/822084429/in-defense-of-coronavirus-testing-strategy-administration-cited-retracted-study?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
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