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TRUMP’S MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH  

Trump is getting desperate when it comes to good news on the pandemic has resorted to questionable behavior.  The latest is touting a revolutionary new therapeutic for treating the Covid-19. It was once called serum therapy.  Now it’s called convalescent Plasma Therapy.  Note the date of the article below.  

The Story of Serum Therapy 

How a 19th-century invention could save lives today.

By Bert Hansen | April 28, 2020 sciencehistory.org

“While the methods being used to create a serum therapy for COVID-19 are modern, the technique itself is old, pioneered more than a century ago in the fight against diphtheria. The same approach later provided hope and sometimes relief for pneumonia and polio patients, until it was displaced for all three diseases by vaccines.

When the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, German physiologist Emil von Behring received one for his work both in showing serum therapy could be used as a general technique to fight infectious diseases and in being the first to use it on a patient. The Nobel committee observed that he had “opened a new road in the domain of medical science and thereby placed in the hands of the physician a victorious weapon against illness and deaths.”

The therapy has been used before, however with mixed results and does not work with all viruses, however it could be helpful.  It’s what we can do now, and if it helps recovery it would be helpful. 

Trump will claim this is revolutionary and changes the battlefield and will be available with my ordering the FDA to authorize the therapy in his speech today (23^rd).  He called it a game changer.  Trump will claim the FDA has dragged their feet in the authorization and gives antidotal observations to counter the normal scientific precautions which prove to alleviate the potential for deadly consequences to certain individuals.  There was a 30,000 patient study that did not have the necessary double blind component to verify the results as actually being beneficial.  The FDA has resisted giving authorization to therapies that are not proven to be effective for its application. 

The FDA has already authorized some emergency uses of the convalescent plasma therapeutic to 70,000 individuals.  The evidence that the therapy is effective is so thin says the FDA and Trump is accusing them of dragging their feet. FDA has argued the treatment’s effectives is inconclusive.  Studies did show a potential of between 2% and 3% reduction in patients that received the drug and those that did not.  The FDA is cautious since this result could have something to do with better treatment modalities over time.  This shows up in hospitalization death rates over time lowering by month.

During the press briefing Dr. Stephen Hann head of the FDA lied and unequivocally stated without any evidence only speculation and merely based on observations in the study and not science.  He cited “the totality of the data” as backing for the use of convalescent plasmas safe.  Ok because it’s been in use for over 100 years?  The question should be is it actually effective?

Sycophant Alex Azar Head of Health and Human Services hailed the treatment “a major advance in the treatment of patients.”  What he did not say was that it has been around for 100’s of years. Someone was actually  given a Nobel Prize for their innovative therapy treatment.  Is Trump aiming for a Nobel Prize in Medicine?

As usual putting politics ahead of public health the White House had claimed for days the FDA was dragging its feet on approval of the lifesaving therapeutics.  The pressure on Hann must have gotten to him after all the attitude of Trump for any kind of treatment is “what could it hurt” even though it may prove to be ineffective.

The FDA last week had held up on issuing authorization at the behest of government scientists who are awaiting clinical trials to prove the safety and efficacy of the treatment.  Scientist Benjamin Corb questioned Trump’s role in promoting the therapy and has said that Trump “once again Trump is putting his political goals ahead of the health and well being of the American people.”

Peter Navarro director of trade has called the FDA “Deep State” and has admonished the organization as “not being on Trump time” for the phase III vaccine testing delays.  Delays that have to do with the diversity of the make-up of the participants and obtaining volunteers.  Note: In the past during other pandemics prisoners were offered reduced sentencing for participation. During this Covid-19 outbreaks in prisons are the norm and volunteers of all ages and ethnicities and sex are incarcerated.  Trump accused the FDA of dragging their feet on the vaccine to impact the election. 

I’ll take you back to a prior admonition that Trump will find a way to have a premature distribution of a vaccine prior to the elections.  He again is following Putin’s lead without the final phase III trial results. Will he force the FDA to give an emergency authorization for unproven vaccine?  Is Trump attempting to use any vaccine too quickly?

With Trump’s track record on therapeutics are less than stellar.  Just last week the My-Pillow Guy, Michael Lindell was with Trump and he had convinced Trump with, antidotal evidence,  to promote a natural extract for the use against the virus.  The drug Oleandrin is a toxic and is extracted from the poison Oleander plant.  Days before meeting with Trump, Michael Lindell invested heavily in the manufacturer of the drug extracted from the plant.  I only saw his promotion once, I wonder why? Ask Siri.

Is his latest promotion just that, a hopeful lie to distract from the death toll from the virus?  It would be beneficial to hear from the experts and not the medical disinformation coming from the Commander in Chief.  Is this just a distraction for everyone with this miracle cure.  Is this rollout a run up to show his administration is doing something prior to the upcoming convention?

He touted the therapeutic convalescent Plasma Therapy as a miracle he insisted was a real benefit for those in trials.  With Trump, even if it has no benefit, “what do you have to lose?.”  The therapy has been proven safe as a result of over a century of usage, however is it effective as a therapy for Covid-19?  As Trump has said “it is what it is.”