Physicians and Patients Respond to Monoclonal Decision

After the announcement from the federal government that it would no longer be offering the monoclonal antibody treatment, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) responded by accusing the President of taking “political revenge at the expense of Floridians.”  Gov. DeSantis held a roundtable discussion with both physicians and patients regarding the Monoclonal treatment decision, and the sentiments shared were that the decision is “not disheartening, it’s disgusting.”

Because of the federal government’s decision, which DeSantis deemed “abrupt and clinically unsupported… the appointments for more than 2,000 Floridians to receive monoclonal antibodies were canceled.”

In response, Governor DeSantis expressed that “this decision was made without clinical data and without any advance warning to states and medical providers, leaving sick Floridians scrambling to find an alternative treatment.” Adding that “thousands of Floridians, who were already in the system and waiting to get treatment, woke up to an email saying that these treatments were now prohibited,” DeSantis went on to call it “fundamentally wrong and not the way we should treat people in this country.”

In contrast, DeSantis asserted that the Sunshine State wants “doctors to be able to administer this treatment and patients to be able to access it, and they can make their own decisions from there.”

Dr. David Farcy, MD Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center was one of several health experts that expressed their disappointment at the Biden Administration’s decision.

Farcy informed that health experts “have been studying the monoclonals to see if it actually does what it says,” and he noted that they have published their first research “that found that the monoclonals had an amazing reduction on hospital admissions.”

Dr. Dwight Reynolds, MD, ABEM, FACEP, Medical Director and Owner, Centers for Health Promotion, Inc, echoed in Farcy’s remarks, admitting that he “was disheartened to tell 18 patients we could not” provide the monoclonal treatment because “the FDA had pulled the EUA for the medications I use the most for my COVID patients.”

Patients struck by COVID also shared their thoughts on the decision. Nancy Schlotter, who was scheduled to undergo the treatment, explained that she was stricken with COVID and lost her sense of taste and smell, lamenting that she wished the treatment was still being provided.