In an opinion piece published on Wednesday, March 9, Dr. Amesh Adalja – senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a practicing infectious disease, critical care, and emergency physician in Pittsburgh, PA – challenged the American Medical Association’s (AMA) criticisms regarding the role of pharmacy-based clinics and pharmacists in President Biden’s Test-to-Treat initiative.
Dr. Adalja described the AMA’s position on COVID-19 antivirals as a “surefire path to ensuring that the window for timely treatment only opens a crack, at best.”
He stated further: “We can’t have a guild-like mentality that seeks to use government force to exclude qualified persons from engaging in a field for which the AMA wants physicians to be the exclusive purveyors.”
NACDS also has taken issue with the AMA’s criticisms, and has noted that pharmacists should be included as prescribers in the Test-to-Treat initiative. A poll conducted by Morning Consult and commissioned by NACDS found that a majority of adults support pharmacists offering COVID antiviral medications and prescribing the medications.
