(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – In a letter to Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladopo accused the Biden administration of preventing “distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments.”
Ladopo recalled Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announcing in August 2021 that monoclonal antibody therapy treatment availability would increase rapidly in the state. The Surgeon General went on to say that “in a matter of weeks, the state had 25 monoclonal antibody sites up and running,” which he believed led the U.S. “in widespread early COVID-19 treatment availability.”
He then reviewed the timeline of events, saying that by mid-September, Florida had “provided this life-saving treatment to nearly 100,000 patients.” Adding that during the peak of infections, the sites served 5,000 patients a day. This approach, he said, made Florida a pioneer in monoclonal antibodies being a “statewide solution to prevent severe illness and reduce the strain of COVID-19 on the state’s hospital systems.”
However, the Florida Surgeon General highlighted a turning point after the state had reached 100,000 people with monoclonal antibody treatments, saying the HHS announced that the number of monoclonal antibodies allocated to Florida would be dramatically reduced. As a result, Ladopo noted, GOP “Governor DeSantis moved quickly to acquire Sotrovimab from GlaxoSmithKline to help alleviate the artificial shortage caused by this sudden shift from HHS.”
In the scathing letter, Ladopo accuses the federal government of “actively preventing the effective distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments.” He continued by saying the sudden suspension of monoclonal antibody treatments made it challenging for healthcare provider’s “to decide the best treatment for their patients,” before saying that the federal government’s shortsightedness was apparent given that they “prohibited states from purchasing these monoclonal antibodies and serving their populations directly.”
Ladopo’s letter follows a move by the Biden administration to pause shipments of COVID-19 antibody treatments that Regeneron and Eli Lilly have manufactured as claims have circulated that the treatments were not effective against Omicron. The Biden administration also cut shipments of monoclonal therapy to Florida and six other states, saying they had used 70% of the nation’s supply.
Copyright 2021
