One of the numerous White House and Republican officials to contract the COVID-19 virus is HUD director Ben Carson. With the Trump administration news cycle adding years to every day, Carson’s condition was kept out of public. On Friday, Carson wrote on his Facebook page that his experience became very dire.
Carson wrote: “Thank you everyone for your support and prayers as Candy and I battled COVID-19. I was extremely sick and initially took Oleander 4X with dramatic improvement. However, I have several co-morbidities and after a brief period when I only experienced minor discomfort, the symptoms accelerated and I became desperately ill. President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life.” As epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding tweeted, “He survived after using monoclonal antibody drugs—*before* it was FDA approved. So much privilege—250k Americans weren’t so lucky.”
Estimates on what this treatment would have cost any of the 250,000 Americans who have died after contracting the virus range from well above $100,000 to about $650,000, in our current system. Whether or not this combination of drugs helped save Carson’s life is not entirely proven. Carson was able to receive the treatment well before the FDA approved it, on Saturday—the day after Carson’s Facebook post. Continue reading.