On Friday, the White House revealed that President Trump was given a dose of an antibody cocktail following his coronavirus diagnosis.
According to a statement from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Trump received an 8-gram dose of the polyclonal antibody cocktail, REGN-COV2, from pharmaceutical company Regeneron, as a “precautionary measure.”
Before the announcement, Dr. Matt McCarthy, an infectious disease doctor, told FOX Business’s Stuart Varney that the Regeneron antibody cocktail would be the first thing he would have recommended for the president.
“If I got brought in today to the Oval Office, first thing I’d say is, has anyone reached out to Regeneron?” McCarthy said. “Has anyone talked about an antibody cocktail for him? Three days ago, the company showed that they can reduce the amount of virus in the body and that they can decrease the duration of symptoms.”
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Regeneron declined to comment on the specifics of giving a dose of its antibody cocktail to the president.
“As a general policy, Regeneron has a compassionate use program with certain established criteria and a review committee,” the company said in a statement. “Also as a matter of policy, we don’t identify individuals without their consent who have or have not submitted a request or who are participating in our clinical trials.”
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“For REGN-COV2, our first priority is to maintain a sufficient supply in order to conduct rigorous clinical trials,” the company added. “In addition to the clinical trial supply, there is limited product available for compassionate use requests that are approved under certain exceptional circumstances on a case-by-case basis.”
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McEnany’s statement also mentioned that the president has been taking “zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin.”
“As of this afternoon, the President remained fatigued but in good spirits,” the statement said. “He’s being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we’ll be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps.”
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McCarthy told Stuart Varney that regardless of statistics, the coronavirus is “unpredictable.”
“Anyone who tells you they know what’s going to happen or anyone who tells you that, oh, he’ll probably be fine, I don’t want that person making decisions for the president of the United States,” McCarthy said. “The key here is to watch how things evolve over the next few days.”
“We see patients all the time in his demographic that feel relatively well for a week and then a week later, they’re in the hospital,” he added. “That’s not to say that’s what’s going to happen here. In fact, no one knows what’s going to happen here. But the key is to keep an eye on his vital signs and, in particular, the amount of oxygen that he has. So if his oxygen saturation starts dropping, that should raise alarm bells that he needs to be headed to a more intensive monitoring system.”