Monoclonal antibody sites across Florida have announced they will be shut down after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) changed its authorization for COVID-19, leading to strong pushback from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Washington Examiner reports.
“This indefensible edict takes treatment out of the hands of medical professionals and will cost some Americans their lives,” DeSantis said in a Monday statement.
“There are real-world implications to Biden’s medical authoritarianism — Americans’ access to treatments is now subject to the whims of a failing president,” he added.
A deadly decision
DeSantis took to Twitter on Tuesday to express his frustration and disappointment with the Biden admin’s potentially deadly decision.
Without a shred of clinical data to support its decision, the Biden Administration has revoked the emergency use authorization for lifesaving monoclonal antibody treatments.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) January 25, 2022
“Rather than giving Americans the option for various COVID treatments, the FDA and the Biden Administration issued their royal decree, taking away the very thing that is proven to reduce hospitalizations and save lives,” Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said in a statement.
“Monoclonal antibody treatments like Regeneron have had a positive impact for thousands of Floridians. For the CDC and FDA, which have been consistently inconsistent throughout the entire pandemic, to restrict treatment does nothing but put individuals at risk,” she added.
People need options
“In our field of medicine, when someone comes to you seeking a treatment that could save their life, it is essential to have treatment options to ensure health care providers can make the best decisions for their patients,” Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said in the statement.
“The Federal Government has failed to adequately provide the United States with adequate outpatient treatment options for COVID-19. Now, they are scrambling to cover up a failure to deliver on a promise to ‘shut down the virus,'” he added.
The closures come following the announcement that Regeneron and Eli Lilly’s treatments shouldn’t be used because they don’t work against the COVID-19 omicron variant.
Florida monoclonal antibody sites have closed following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s announcement that Regeneron and Eli Lilly’s treatments shouldn’t be used because they don’t work against the COVID omicron variant. https://t.co/M8lNsOJ2uN
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) January 25, 2022
The closures, however, seem politically motivated — a sad commentary on the use of politics to deny treatment to those facing life and death choices.