FDA Skeptical About Anthrax Kit Access

 Plans to make anthrax-antidote kits available to the 114 million households in the U.S. may lead to misuse of medicines and stir up public fears, advisers said in a Bloomburg Businessweek article.

The regulatory advisers say that people might infer that an anthrax attack is imminent, which could lead to an adverse impact on doxycycline, the antibiotic that was hoarded after 9/11. The FDA met with panels of scientists and academics to consider whether kits containing 10-day supplies of doxycycline should be available for Americans to store in their homes in preparation for a bioterrorist attack, the article says.