Trump Overstates Status of COVID-19 Antibody Drugs
Calling investigational COVID-19 antibody drugs “cures” in a video posted to Twitter, President Donald Trump incorrectly said the therapies had been authorized and that “hundreds of thousands of doses” were nearly ready.
He also suggested he had personally benefited from an antibody cocktail made by the biotech company Regeneron. It was one of several drugs the president received since he tested positive for the coronavirus.
The president later undercut that message, claiming in a subsequent interview that he “would’ve done it fine with no drugs,” but iterated that the drugs had cured him in another video.
The drugs in question are monoclonal antibodies, which are synthetic proteins optimized to recognize the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, and in theory should help clear the virus from the body. While many experts view them as promising — and some early data support that enthusiasm — the products are still in clinical trials and have not been proven to be effective for COVID-19 patients, much less cure the disease.
Trump’s Video
In the first video, which was posted to Twitter on Oct. 7, Trump praised the effects of the Regeneron antibody cocktail he received prior to being admitted on Oct. 2 to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a three-day stay.
“I went in and I wasn’t feeling so hot, and within, incorrectly referring to the cocktail by the company’s name and contradicting his physician on being given the drug at the White House. “It’s called Regeneron, and other things too. But I think this was the key, but they gave me Regeneron, and it was like, unbelievable. I felt good immediately. I felt as good three days ago as I do now.”
