Florida 's surgeon general has accused the Biden administration of 'actively preventing' the distribution of monoclonal antibod...
Florida's surgeon general has accused the Biden administration of 'actively preventing' the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments in the US in a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr Joseph Lapado said that the sudden suspension of the treatments from distribution to Florida removes the health care provider's ability to 'decide the best treatment options for their patients' in a letter addressed to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The Biden administration paused shipments of the Covid antibody drugs from Regeneron and Eli Lilly last month after the drugmakers warned that laboratory testing suggested their therapies will be much less potent against Omicron.
This is because the new variant contains dozens of mutations that make it harder for antibodies to attack the virus.
Dr Joseph Lapado said that the sudden suspension of the treatments from distribution to Florida removes the health care provider's ability to 'decide the best treatment options for their patients' in a letter addressed to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra
The Biden administration paused shipments of the Covid antibody drugs from Regeneron and Eli Lilly last month after the drugmakers warned that laboratory testing suggested their therapies will be much less potent against Omicron
Dr Lapado wrote in the letter: 'The federal government is actively preventing the effective distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments in the US.
'This sudden suspension of multiple monoclonal antibody therapy treatments from distribution to Florida removes a health care provider's ability to provide the best treatment options for their patients in this state.
'This shortsightedness is especially evident given the federal government effectively prohibited states from purchasing these monoclonal antibodies and serving their populations directly.'
Dr Ladapo concluded his letter by referencing comments Biden made on Monday that there was no federal solution to Covid-19
'There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level,' Biden said at the time in response to Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson who had warned the President against letting 'federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions.'
Dr Ladapo wrote: 'As Surgeon General, I respectfully request that you allow states and healthcare practitioners to provide treatment options that best benefit the communities that they know and serve.'
Florida's surgeon general has accused the Biden administration of 'actively preventing' the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments in the US in a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services
For more than a year monocolonal antibody drugs from Regeneron and Eli Lilly have been the go-to treatments for early COVID-19, thanks to their ability to head off severe disease and keep patients out of the hospital.
But after research found that they were less effective in fighting against the Omicron variant, the government decided to suspend their distribution.
A third antibody from British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline appears to be the best positioned to fight Omicron.
But Glaxo's drug is not widely available in the U.S., accounting for a small portion of the millions of doses purchased and distributed by the federal government. U.S. health officials are now rationing scarce drug supplies to states.
Fauci said last week that while boosted Americans have about 75% protection against the Omicron variant, some monoclonal antibody treatments won't work against the new strain due to its mutations.
'Unfortunately, but understandably with the degree of mutations that we have with Omicron, some of the monoclonal antibodies shown on the slide here very likely will not work against Omicron and those are shown in the first two monoclonal antibodies,' Fauci said on MSNBC on Dec. 22.
The Regeneron and Lilly monoclonal antibody treatments were deemed 'unlikely' to fight Omicron, while the GSK/Vir and AZ treatments were believed to work.
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