On Sunday, Donald Trump held a press conference to announce a “therapeutic breakthrough” that was anything but. Trump said that his FDA had issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for antibody-rich plasma to treat Covid-19 patients, and claimed that he had overcome resistance from members of the “deep state” embedded at the agency to deliver it. Scientists were quick to point out that while plasma therapy has shown promise in some patients, its efficacy hasn’t been established in controlled trials and added that the authorization would have limited impact anyway given that tens of thousands of patients have already received the treatment.
On its face, this seemed like Trump trying to grab some overly credulous headlines heading into the GOP convention. Last week, it was reported that White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro “had aggressively confronted FDA officials” during a meeting to discuss Covid-19, saying, “You are all Deep State and you need to get on Trump Time.’” According to Axios, “Navarro has been venting at the FDA for weeks at what he perceives as its slowness to approve therapeutics” to combat the pandemic.
But Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and vaccine scientist at Baylor University, suggested that there might be more to it than that. “I think the reason why the White House got involved has less to do with an EUA for plasma therapy (although maybe it’s a way they can appear to be doing something substantive) and more to do with getting the public feeling comfortable with EUAs,” he wrote on Twitter. Hotez speculated that their “ulterior motive” was to “lower the bar for EUAs in general, in order to push what they really want – an EUA for a COVID19 vaccine.” Continue reading.