President Trump announced Sunday he will arrange an emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients, calling it a “major breakthrough.”
At a White House press briefing yesterday the president said the FDA has “issued an emergency use authorization… for a treatment known as convalescent plasma.”
“This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection,” Trump told reporters. He went on to say the authorization will “expand access to this treatment.”
“Based on the science and the data, the FDA has made the independent determination that the treatment is safe and very effective,” President Trump said, before encouraging any former COVID-19 patients in the country to donate their plasma.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany publicized Trump’s press conference in a post on Twitter Saturday evening, saying it concerned “a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China virus.”
News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance.
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) August 23, 2020
The message from Trump on Sunday comes after White House officials signified last week there were politically motivated setbacks by the Food and Drug Administration in approving a vaccine and treatment for COVID-19.
The new treatment takes convalescent plasma from recovered patients who previously had a COVID infection and utilizes its antibodies. The treatment shows promise for patients still combating the virus, however the best way to administer it is questionable, according to experts.
The speed of the plasma’s approval has had the White House administration getting restless. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was very vague, but made a cryptic statement saying, “we’ve looked at a number of people that are not being as diligent as they should be in terms of getting to the bottom of it.”
“This president is about cutting red tape,” Meadows told ABC’s This Week in an interview. “He had to make sure that they felt the heat. If they don’t see the light, they need to feel the heat because the American people are suffering.”
The actions on Sunday happened only one day after Trump had pointed words on Twitter regarding the method to treat the virus, which presently is responsible for allegedly over 176,000 deaths of Americans and has hurt the president’s poll numbers.
White House officials have spared no expense working toward a vaccine and, according to Fox, the Trump administration wants a new treatment as an “October surprise” which could assist the president in locking down the election in November.
The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives! @SteveFDA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2020
“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,” Trump posted on social media. “Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!”
In the U.S. over 64,000 coronavirus patients have been treated with convalescent plasma, which is a 100-year-old method to fight off flu and measles before the perfection of vaccines. Convalescent plasma has been a popular approach to treat new diseases, and it has a record of working against a number of infections, but is not a cure-all, experts say.
There is not enough research as of yet to prove it will stop COVID-19 or in what manner to use it. After announcing the emergency authorization for convalescent plasma the FDA warned that its benefits “outweigh the known and potential risks of the product and that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternative treatments.”
Today, we issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for investigational convalescent plasma for the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to fight #COVID19. https://t.co/sxWrblWsxr pic.twitter.com/DnTrJaDTX1
— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 23, 2020
On CBS’s Face the Nation former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that the convalescent plasma treatment is “probably beneficial,” but scoffed at Trump’s implication about a purposeful slowdown.
“I firmly reject the idea they would slow-walk anything or accelerate anything based on any political consideration or any consideration other than what is best for the public health and a real sense of mission to patients,” Gottlieb told CBS.