Health officials have designated tecovirimat, also called Tpoxx, an “investigational drug,” which they say means it cannot be released from the strategic national stockpile without a series of convoluted bureaucratic steps. But most doctors do not have the time or resources to fill out the required 27-page application or to provide the detailed patient information.

It doesn’t have to be this way, experts say: There is no law preventing federal officials from changing those rules and making the drug more widely available…

“The bureaucracy of gaining access to Tpoxx is excessive given the crisis the U.S. is facing with monkeypox,” said Larry O. Gostin, an expert on public health law and director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.

“The law gives the agency considerable flexibility to use scientific assessments to ensure those in need get the medication that can help them,” he added.