Federal drug regulators are considering approving Johnson & Johnson’s powerful antibiotic Levaquin as a treatment for pneumonic plague, the ancient and deadly disease still feared for its potential use as a biological weapon. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration yesterday overwhelmingly agreed that studies performed on monkeys provided substantial evidence of Levaquin’s effectiveness in treating pneumonic plague. The panel issued a similar vote involving Bayer’s antibiotic Ciprofloxacin.
