Gov. Ron DeSantis has been almost alone in promoting the idea that we should attack COVID-19 with something besides vaccines, masks, and prayer.
Florida’s Republican chief executive and his top medical adviser, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, have pushed treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, and a healthy lifestyle, that includes exercise, weight loss, Vitamin D, and other steps to reduce co-morbidities.
But now the Biden administration, for apparently a second time, is undercutting this strategy by denying Florida life-saving monoclonal antibody treatments, or MABs.
The federal government, which according to President Joe Biden does not have a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, recently cut back on delivery of MABs to states. The feds claim the drugs are almost impotent in the face of the omicron variant.
In a letter on Tuesday to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, however, Ladapo criticized the Biden administration for playing politics with people’s lives, by denying local providers the opportunity and tools to treat their own communities.
Ladapo wrote that DeSantis, beginning in mid-August, had helped protect nearly 100,000 people by providing MAB treatment at roughly two dozen sites around Florida.
“Florida,” Ladapo wrote, “pioneered monoclonal antibodies as a statewide solution to prevent severe illness and reduce eh strain of COVID-19 on the state’s hospital systems.”
Ladapo recounted that the feds, without any advance notice, implemented a “drastic reduction” in MAB disease to Florida three months ago, forcing the state to deal directly with drugmakers in an effort to crucial this “artificial shortage.”
Now, Ladapo added, “the lack of allocation of this life-saving treatment from the federal government continues to cause another immediate and life-threatening shortage of treatment options to the state of Florida as the Omicron variant spreads throughout the state.”
Despite the growing presence of omicron, Ladapo argued that there are areas of Florida that can still benefit from MAB treatments.
“The federal government is actively preventing the effective distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments in the US. The sudden suspension of multiple monoclonal antibody therapy treatments from distribution to Florida removes a health care provider’s ability to decide the best treatment options for their patients in this state,” he wrote.
“This shortsightedness is especially evident given that the federal government effectively prohibited states from purchasing these monoclonal antibodies and serving their populations directly.”
“We must empower healthcare providers to make decisions that will save the lives of Americans everywhere without the dictates imposed by the federal government,” Ladapo continued.
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