FDA targets inaccurate medical tests, citing dangers and costs

Inaccurate and unreliable medical tests are prompting abortions, promoting unnecessary surgeries, putting tens of thousands of people on unneeded drugs and raising medical costs, the Food and Drug Administration has concluded. Life-threatening diseases go undetected in some cases. In others, patients are treated for conditions they do not have. "Patients have been demonstrably harmed or may have been harmed by tests that did not meet F.D.A. requirements," federal investigators concluded in a report to Congress last week. The findings come at a time when the use of laboratory-developed tests is booming, the Obama administration is seeking new regulatory powers and even Republicans in Congress are working on legislation to set stricter standards.