11:07 p.m. ET, August 28, 2020
Plasma therapy is no surefire cure for Covid-19
Opinion by John P. Moore and Melissa Cushing
Editor's note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the authors'. View more opinion on CNN.
The US Food and Drug Administration's shocking decision this week to allow the use of Covid-19 convalescent plasma to treat sick patients
was by all appearances motivated by a desire to appease President Donald Trump rather than on any serious consideration of the science.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn left the medical community aghast
when he said, at a news conference on Sunday, that 35 of 100 people sick with Covid-19 "would have been saved because of the administration of plasma."
Researchers and doctors were confused by Hahn's comments. We were, even after combing through the preliminary manuscripts from the Mayo Clinic on the efficacy of using plasma from Covid-19 patients, from which this claim was reportedly drawn.
The manuscripts, by the way, have not been peer-reviewed and do not describe a randomized clinical trial that proves Covid-19 convalescent plasma, or CCP, is effective. One of them presents pooled data drawn from CCP studies in multiple countries including China, Iran, Iraq and Mexico. In short, we need much more information than we now have.
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