Comments on efficacy of COVID-19 plasma treatment walked back by FDA Chief

Berkeley Lovelace Jr.@BERKELEYJR

Will Feuer@WILLFOIA

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the current FDA Commissioner is walking back his comments on the benefits of convalescent plasma, saying he could have done a better job of explaining the data on its effectiveness against the coronavirus after authorizing it for emergency use over the weekend.

After he stated at a White House press briefing Sunday that a Mayo Clinic study found the treatment resulted in a 35% improvement in survival, Dr. Hahn came under intense criticism from scientists However, in its authorization, the agency cited more complicated findings from Mayo Clinic researchers on the use of plasma.

Experts noted the study found that patients younger than 80 years old who were not on a respirator and received plasma with a high level of antibodies within three days of diagnosis were about 35% more likely to survive another 30 days compared with patients who received plasma with a low level of antibodies. A weakness of the Mayo study was that it did not include a controlled group of patients receiving a placebo.

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