Ann: TGA Registration Update, page-2382

Plenty of blame to go around.

What I do think is manifestly unfair is

- The TGA accepting registration requests in bad faith as they were "waiting for a signal from the government". Even if they informed applicants of the situation informally I think that's pretty deplorable.
- Medico and governments of all stripes to treat LFTs as a single undifferentiated market with attributes cherry picked for partisan purposes. If I hear another argument starting "RATs [some nonsense generalization] whereas PCR tests [some more self serving nonsense generalization]". As a species we really need to start getting to grips with nuanced complexity. The best of our scientists can do it - if our medicos and politicians can't, they need to stop calling the shots based on their gut feel and focus groups and delegate the decision making to people who actually know stuff. If they want to temper science with economics get proper exponents of both to duke it out - no more politically motivated appointments.
- The TGA changing the rules multiple times whilst registration applications were on foot.
- The TGA allowing tests registered whilst the rules were relaxed to remain in the market when they started to apply much stricter rules. As a process this clearly favors slipshod and poorly tested applicants and gives them an advantage over more thoughtful and better tested applicants. Now I recognize that this probably cannot be any other way - at a time of scarcity they could hardly take the crappy tests off the market and replace them with a vacuum but its very unfair.
- Some of the provisions on what claims may be made are clearly aimed at restricting the manufacturers and distributors of shoddy tests from hoodwinking the public. By preventing high quality tests from making appropriately proven claims we just end up with an undifferentiated market that consumers inevitably turn into a race to the bottom. If you can't make a quality claim about your product, even when it is proven, that just allows the crap to coexist with the gold which is not in the long term interests of consumers.

I could go on but I need some lunch.

GLTAH.