People most impacted by COVID-19 may face barriers in getting costly treatments
Federal officials on Tuesday plan to begin shipping thousands of doses of the monoclonal antibody drug made famous when President Donald Trump praised it after his COVID-19 recovery. But experts worry the drug could be out of reach for some of the people it could most help, and may even exacerbate the pandemic’s racial and economic disparities.
When Trump praised the experimental drug made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in October, he promised it would be widely available for free. But widespread distribution isn’t possible because of limited manufacturing of the newly developed drug.
“It is quite possible that inequities in access to monoclonal antibodies and other novel therapies will increase already well-documented health care disparities,” wrote Robert Goldstein and Rochelle Walensky, infectious diseases doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, in a Nov. 11 Journal of the American Medical Association article, noting that millions lost their employee-sponsored health insurance this year, including some who remain uninsured. That is likely to have worsened inequality in coverage for Black and Latino people. Continue reading.