They Shunned C****-** V*****es but Embraced Antibody Treatment
Sep 20, 2021 09:33:46 #
Go figure this out, before they get the v***s they won't use the "experimental" v*****e, after they get the v***s they beg for the Experimental antibody treatment,,,, makes no sense to me?
Benjamin Mueller
Sun, September 19, 2021, 10:25 AM
But contracting C****-** shattered his faith in his body’s defenses — so much so that Jones, nose clogged and appetite vanished, began hunting for anything to spare himself a nightmarish illness.
The answer turned out to be monoclonal antibodies, a 1-year-old, laboratory-created drug no less experimental than the v*****e. In a glass-walled enclosure at Houston Methodist Hospital this month, Jones, 65, became one of more than a million patients, including Donald Trump and Joe Rogan, to receive an antibody infusion as the v***s has battered the United States.
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V*****e-resistant Americans are turning to the treatment with a zeal that has, at times, mystified their doctors, chasing down lengthy infusions after rejecting v*****es that cost one-hundredth as much. Orders have exploded so quickly this summer — to 168,000 doses per week in late August, up from 27,000 in July — that the Biden administration warned states this week of a dwindling national supply.
The federal government, which was already covering the cost of the treatment — currently about $2,100 per dose — has now taken over its distribution as well. For the coming weeks, the government has told states to expect scaled-back shipments because of the looming shortages.
With seven Southern states accounting for 70% of orders, the new process has unsettled some of their governors, who have made the antibody treatment central to their strategy for enduring a catastrophic wave of the delta variant.
More supplies are on the way. The federal government bought 1.8 million more doses this week, expected to arrive in the fall and winter. But for now, some hospitals are uncertain of supplies, state health officials said, even as patients keep searching for doses.
“We have providers struggling to get the necessary product,” said Kody Kinsley, who leads operations for North Carolina’s C****-** response. “I think what has happened is a classic logistics issue, where all of a sudden there’s much more demand.”
Amid a din of anti-v*****e falsehoods, monoclonal antibodies have become the rare c****av***s medicine to achieve near-universal acceptance. Championed by mainstream doctors and conservative radio hosts alike, the infusions have kept the country’s death toll — 2,000 per day and climbing — from soaring even higher.
And after months of work by President Joe Biden and Southern governors to promote the treatments, they have won the affection of v*****e refusers who said that the terrors and uncertainties of actually getting C****-** had made them desperate for an antidote.
“The people you love, you trust, nobody said anything negative about it,” Jones said of the antibody treatment. “And I’ve heard nothing but negative things about the side effects of the v*****e and how quickly it was developed.”
Some Republican governors have set up antibody clinics while opposing v*****e mandates, frustrating even some of the drugs’ strongest proponents. Raising v******tion rates, scientists said, would obviate the need for many of the costly antibody treatments in the first place. The infusions take about an hour and a half, including monitoring afterward, and require constant attention from nurses whom hard-hit states often cannot spare.
“It’s clogging up resources, it’s hard to give, and a v*****e is $20 and could prevent almost all of that,” said Dr. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist and the chief of population health at Family Health Centers of San Diego, a community-based provider. Pushing antibodies while playing down v*****es, he said, was “like investing in car insurance without investing in brakes.”
The government-supplied monoclonal antibodies, made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, have been shown to significantly shorten patients’ symptoms and reduce their risk of being hospitalized — by 70%, in the case of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail. The treatments, given in a single sitting, use lab-made copies of the antibodies that people generate naturally when fighting an infection.
Patients and doctors alike overlooked the treatments during the wintertime surge of infections. But hospitals and health centers have now ramped up their offerings, t***sforming dental clinics, mobile units and auditoriums into infusion centers. In states like Texas, where elective surgeries have been postponed to make room for C****-** patients, operating room nurses have been enlisted to give infusions.
One factor driving the demand is that many patients, including v*****e skeptics, have been spreading the word about their seemingly miraculous recoveries.
“They’re like, ‘I have C***D, I want this treatment, my friend or family told me about this,’” said Jennifer Berry, the Houston Methodist nursing director of infusion services. “Now the word is out.”
At Houston Methodist, nurses administered nearly 1,100 treatments across eight sites in the first week of September, well more than twice as many as any week last winter. The hospital reduced the average time between orders and infusions to two days this month from three days in early August, giving patients a better chance of fighting off infections.
Juggling the infusions with more seriously ill C****-** patients this summer forced the hospital, in one case, to move a monoclonal antibody clinic to a strip mall storefront.
But the Texas health department has helped, providing 19 nurses for a different Houston Methodist infusion clinic, said Vicki Brownewell, the lead administrator for the hospital’s program. The Biden administration has also invested $150 million in expanding access to monoclonal antibodies, and Houston Methodist has used federal money to arrange medical taxis for patients struggling with t***sportation.
Even so, the infusions remain inaccessible to many. Given the heavy demands on staff and the need to create separate infusion rooms for infectious patients, certain communities, especially in rural areas, do not have clinics.
In San Diego, Ramers said, some large, for-profit hospitals have decided not to administer the antibodies at all because of the logistical hassles, leaving wealthier, well-insured patients to hunt down doses at his publicly funded clinic. Some nurses that he hired for infusions left for short, better-paying assignments in hard-hit intensive care units.
“The natural, capitalist incentives for health care organizations that are for profit don’t really favor doing this,” Ramers said. “It’s a lot of work.”
Of the 2.4 million monoclonal antibody doses shipped nationally, at least 1.1 million have been used. Precisely how many are still sitting on shelves is hard to determine because of reporting gaps. Still, waning federal supplies and soaring demand from less-v******ted Southern states have caused what several states have described as large shortfalls in deliveries.
North Carolina providers have requested 15,000 weekly doses, the health department there said, more than double what the federal government has allocated. Florida said its latest weekly allotment left clinics there 41,000 doses short of what they wanted.
Hospitals had previously been able to order the drugs themselves. But the Department of Health and Human Services will now decide how many doses each state receives based on case rates and use of the treatment. State governments, in turn, will decide on doses for individual sites.
The new ordering process, which the Biden administration said would ensure “equitable distribution,” has unsettled some backers of the drug. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, warned Thursday that state officials were unprepared for the new responsibility of parceling out doses.
And in heavily v******ted states, like New York, people coordinating treatments fear that shipments will plummet because of low case rates, leaving hospitals with so few doses that they shutter their programs. Some hospitals recently reported growing numbers of v******ted patients receiving infusions.
Diana Berrent, the founder of Survivor Corps, which has worked to help patients find monoclonal antibody treatments, said that involving state governments would create delays: “You’re layering in 50 new layers of bureaucracy,” she said.
Doctors have warned that antibody treatments alone cannot keep pace with ballooning outbreaks. Whereas any one v******tion protects untold others from exposure, a single infusion only helps a single patient. Infusions must be given within 10 days of symptoms; they are unhelpful to most hospitalized patients. And receiving the antibodies once does not keep people from becoming seriously ill if they catch the v***s again later.
“Something like that just doesn’t scale,” said Dr. Howard Huang, the medical leader for Houston Methodist’s infusion program.
As a result, health officials have warned that v*****e skeptics may become so enamored of monoclonal antibodies that they become even more resistant to getting a protective shot.
Within days of his infusion, Jones had left the bedroom where he had been quarantined and returned to his work as a landscape architect. But he was still weighing whether to be v******ted.
His doctor was pushing for the shot, he said. But the monoclonal antibodies had worked so well that he was tempted to simply return for another infusion if he caught C****-** again.
“If I can go get an infusion and feel as good as I do right now, man, I’d rather not take a v*****e that has just been developed,” he said. “That makes me nervous, still.”
Benjamin Mueller
Sun, September 19, 2021, 10:25 AM
But contracting C****-** shattered his faith in his body’s defenses — so much so that Jones, nose clogged and appetite vanished, began hunting for anything to spare himself a nightmarish illness.
The answer turned out to be monoclonal antibodies, a 1-year-old, laboratory-created drug no less experimental than the v*****e. In a glass-walled enclosure at Houston Methodist Hospital this month, Jones, 65, became one of more than a million patients, including Donald Trump and Joe Rogan, to receive an antibody infusion as the v***s has battered the United States.
Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times
V*****e-resistant Americans are turning to the treatment with a zeal that has, at times, mystified their doctors, chasing down lengthy infusions after rejecting v*****es that cost one-hundredth as much. Orders have exploded so quickly this summer — to 168,000 doses per week in late August, up from 27,000 in July — that the Biden administration warned states this week of a dwindling national supply.
The federal government, which was already covering the cost of the treatment — currently about $2,100 per dose — has now taken over its distribution as well. For the coming weeks, the government has told states to expect scaled-back shipments because of the looming shortages.
With seven Southern states accounting for 70% of orders, the new process has unsettled some of their governors, who have made the antibody treatment central to their strategy for enduring a catastrophic wave of the delta variant.
More supplies are on the way. The federal government bought 1.8 million more doses this week, expected to arrive in the fall and winter. But for now, some hospitals are uncertain of supplies, state health officials said, even as patients keep searching for doses.
“We have providers struggling to get the necessary product,” said Kody Kinsley, who leads operations for North Carolina’s C****-** response. “I think what has happened is a classic logistics issue, where all of a sudden there’s much more demand.”
Amid a din of anti-v*****e falsehoods, monoclonal antibodies have become the rare c****av***s medicine to achieve near-universal acceptance. Championed by mainstream doctors and conservative radio hosts alike, the infusions have kept the country’s death toll — 2,000 per day and climbing — from soaring even higher.
And after months of work by President Joe Biden and Southern governors to promote the treatments, they have won the affection of v*****e refusers who said that the terrors and uncertainties of actually getting C****-** had made them desperate for an antidote.
“The people you love, you trust, nobody said anything negative about it,” Jones said of the antibody treatment. “And I’ve heard nothing but negative things about the side effects of the v*****e and how quickly it was developed.”
Some Republican governors have set up antibody clinics while opposing v*****e mandates, frustrating even some of the drugs’ strongest proponents. Raising v******tion rates, scientists said, would obviate the need for many of the costly antibody treatments in the first place. The infusions take about an hour and a half, including monitoring afterward, and require constant attention from nurses whom hard-hit states often cannot spare.
“It’s clogging up resources, it’s hard to give, and a v*****e is $20 and could prevent almost all of that,” said Dr. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist and the chief of population health at Family Health Centers of San Diego, a community-based provider. Pushing antibodies while playing down v*****es, he said, was “like investing in car insurance without investing in brakes.”
The government-supplied monoclonal antibodies, made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, have been shown to significantly shorten patients’ symptoms and reduce their risk of being hospitalized — by 70%, in the case of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail. The treatments, given in a single sitting, use lab-made copies of the antibodies that people generate naturally when fighting an infection.
Patients and doctors alike overlooked the treatments during the wintertime surge of infections. But hospitals and health centers have now ramped up their offerings, t***sforming dental clinics, mobile units and auditoriums into infusion centers. In states like Texas, where elective surgeries have been postponed to make room for C****-** patients, operating room nurses have been enlisted to give infusions.
One factor driving the demand is that many patients, including v*****e skeptics, have been spreading the word about their seemingly miraculous recoveries.
“They’re like, ‘I have C***D, I want this treatment, my friend or family told me about this,’” said Jennifer Berry, the Houston Methodist nursing director of infusion services. “Now the word is out.”
At Houston Methodist, nurses administered nearly 1,100 treatments across eight sites in the first week of September, well more than twice as many as any week last winter. The hospital reduced the average time between orders and infusions to two days this month from three days in early August, giving patients a better chance of fighting off infections.
Juggling the infusions with more seriously ill C****-** patients this summer forced the hospital, in one case, to move a monoclonal antibody clinic to a strip mall storefront.
But the Texas health department has helped, providing 19 nurses for a different Houston Methodist infusion clinic, said Vicki Brownewell, the lead administrator for the hospital’s program. The Biden administration has also invested $150 million in expanding access to monoclonal antibodies, and Houston Methodist has used federal money to arrange medical taxis for patients struggling with t***sportation.
Even so, the infusions remain inaccessible to many. Given the heavy demands on staff and the need to create separate infusion rooms for infectious patients, certain communities, especially in rural areas, do not have clinics.
In San Diego, Ramers said, some large, for-profit hospitals have decided not to administer the antibodies at all because of the logistical hassles, leaving wealthier, well-insured patients to hunt down doses at his publicly funded clinic. Some nurses that he hired for infusions left for short, better-paying assignments in hard-hit intensive care units.
“The natural, capitalist incentives for health care organizations that are for profit don’t really favor doing this,” Ramers said. “It’s a lot of work.”
Of the 2.4 million monoclonal antibody doses shipped nationally, at least 1.1 million have been used. Precisely how many are still sitting on shelves is hard to determine because of reporting gaps. Still, waning federal supplies and soaring demand from less-v******ted Southern states have caused what several states have described as large shortfalls in deliveries.
North Carolina providers have requested 15,000 weekly doses, the health department there said, more than double what the federal government has allocated. Florida said its latest weekly allotment left clinics there 41,000 doses short of what they wanted.
Hospitals had previously been able to order the drugs themselves. But the Department of Health and Human Services will now decide how many doses each state receives based on case rates and use of the treatment. State governments, in turn, will decide on doses for individual sites.
The new ordering process, which the Biden administration said would ensure “equitable distribution,” has unsettled some backers of the drug. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, warned Thursday that state officials were unprepared for the new responsibility of parceling out doses.
And in heavily v******ted states, like New York, people coordinating treatments fear that shipments will plummet because of low case rates, leaving hospitals with so few doses that they shutter their programs. Some hospitals recently reported growing numbers of v******ted patients receiving infusions.
Diana Berrent, the founder of Survivor Corps, which has worked to help patients find monoclonal antibody treatments, said that involving state governments would create delays: “You’re layering in 50 new layers of bureaucracy,” she said.
Doctors have warned that antibody treatments alone cannot keep pace with ballooning outbreaks. Whereas any one v******tion protects untold others from exposure, a single infusion only helps a single patient. Infusions must be given within 10 days of symptoms; they are unhelpful to most hospitalized patients. And receiving the antibodies once does not keep people from becoming seriously ill if they catch the v***s again later.
“Something like that just doesn’t scale,” said Dr. Howard Huang, the medical leader for Houston Methodist’s infusion program.
As a result, health officials have warned that v*****e skeptics may become so enamored of monoclonal antibodies that they become even more resistant to getting a protective shot.
Within days of his infusion, Jones had left the bedroom where he had been quarantined and returned to his work as a landscape architect. But he was still weighing whether to be v******ted.
His doctor was pushing for the shot, he said. But the monoclonal antibodies had worked so well that he was tempted to simply return for another infusion if he caught C****-** again.
“If I can go get an infusion and feel as good as I do right now, man, I’d rather not take a v*****e that has just been developed,” he said. “That makes me nervous, still.”
Sep 20, 2021 09:44:36 #
microphor
Loc: Home is TN
Michael10 wrote:
Go figure this out, before they get the v***s they... (show quote)
You do realize that you are connecting everyone who doesn't get vaxed to an anti-vaxer which is causing more division and isolation. Some people don't get vaxed for other health reasons, doctors recommendation, concern about unborn babies or the the fear that Kamala implemented in minority community a year ago when she said "I wont take any v*****e that Donald Trump had anything to do with". You should be ashamed of yourself for promoting this propaganda. There are people out there who are scared and hurting.
Sep 20, 2021 09:57:14 #
microphor wrote:
You do realize that you are connecting everyone wh... (show quote)
I'm not lumping the people who can't for health reasons, take the v*****e and have posted that before. I've also posted that people who can and don't are putting those who can't in danger. No i'm not ashamed of posting the t***h about this v***s and how many who deny the now FDA approved v*****e will take the unapproved antibodies for a cure. I am pointing a finger at the hypocrisy of refusing one and taking the other. I guess when people are faced with possible death or extended illness they change their minds on what is and isn't good for you.
The same people who won't take the v*****e because they don't know what's in it when faced with the v***s will gladly take the antibody treatment. Maybe if more people would take the v*****e there would be more of the antibody treatments for those who can't take the v*****e for medical reasons.
Sep 20, 2021 10:36:42 #
Michael10 wrote:
I'm not lumping the people who can't for health re... (show quote)
So you admittedly are STILL pushing and pushing for people to get the "v*****e" drugs (it's not a v*****e). Even when, now that enough time has passed, doctors and hospitals are seeing people presenting to them with symptoms from the gene therapy drugs? Symptoms like cardiac issues, neurological issues, balance issues, cognitive issues, aggressive behavior, encephalopathic (brain) issues....symptoms that are very different from C***d symptoms? There are things happening to people that have changed their lives forever....people who have gone from the caregivers to the care needy from these drugs!
You need to stop pushing this! Stop pushing drugs for something that is HIGHLY recoverable. STOP...and let people make their own decisions. There is information both pro and con for these drugs - very valuable information that individuals must take into consideration for their OWN lives with their OWN medical histories.
Stop pushing. Let people make up their own minds without being coerced and SHAMED into making a decision that might be one of the most important decisions of their lives!! YOU could be pushing them to their deaths. Stop it!
Sep 20, 2021 10:49:30 #
Michael10 wrote:
Go figure this out, before they get the v***s they... (show quote)
What other people do is none of your frelling business.
Sep 20, 2021 10:54:10 #
Michael10 wrote:
I'm not lumping the people who can't for health re... (show quote)
It is NONE of YOUR business.
You don't mind lumping the few rape and incest victims in justify your excuse to massacre unborn babies. YOU, calling ANYONE ELSE a hypocrite is ridiculous and insulting to the intelligence of the average front lawn.
We just insist you quit frelling with us about something NOT YOUR BUSINESS.
Sep 20, 2021 10:55:22 #
EmilyD wrote:
So you admittedly are STILL pushing and pushing fo... (show quote)
My genes have worked fine the 58 years I've needed them and in this instance I don't need their frelling "help".
Sep 20, 2021 11:30:09 #
EmilyD wrote:
So you admittedly are STILL pushing and pushing fo... (show quote)
At this point I'm simply posting articles written by someone else, I'm not cherry picking information from them, like some on this site. If you don't want the v*****e by all means don't take it just don't ask for the cure, Antibody therapy, when you get it. Save that for those who care about their health and those who can't take the v*****e for health reasons. It seems strange that 70% of the Antibody therapy is going to a few red states where people refuse to except good sense or their governors refuse to look after their constituents well being. As long as there's mis-information about the v***s going on I'm going to post the t***h, like it or not.
Sep 20, 2021 11:31:15 #
BigMike wrote:
My genes have worked fine the 58 years I've needed them and in this instance I don't need their frelling "help".
Good then you won't need the antibody treatment when you do get the v***s. I once knew a preacher who handled poisonous snakes, he said God wouldn't let the snake bite him if his faith remained strong. Guess what, one did bite him and it k**led him just as dead as the v*****e deniers who have died from the v***s.
Sep 20, 2021 11:33:55 #
microphor
Loc: Home is TN
Michael10 wrote:
I'm not lumping the people who can't for health re... (show quote)
The statement I responded to was certainly generalized and did not allow for those who can't take the v*****e For wh**ever reasons. You're still promoting the assumption that these are anti-vaxers. Besides it really doesn't matter If it's true that this v*****e that I've taken, protects me from the v***s what do I care about the people who choose not to take it that's their business.
Sep 20, 2021 11:56:47 #
Michael10 wrote:
At this point I'm simply posting articles written ... (show quote)
You're posting what YOU think is the t***h. What is true for you may not be true for someone else. You are not respecting other people when you try to shame and coerce them....you are dictating to them.
Do you think you are 100% correct? Do you not realize that what YOU are saying might be misinformation? The t***h, Michael 10, is that you don't know. You don't know long-term affects on anything! Doctors don't know...scientists don't know....researchers don't know....because not enough time has passed to determine the safety and effectiveness of ANYTHING yet! Not the gene therapy drugs.... AND Not the monoclonal antibodies, (which, as you point out, is a 1-year-old, laboratory-created drug)!
Your "I know better than anyone else" attitude shows what you are: A bully! Stop your bullying and let people make up their own minds! PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM THE GENE THERAPY "V*****E" DRUGS ! A lot of people! Too many deaths for the media and people like you to try to cover up. You need to STOP pushing the drugs.
Sep 20, 2021 12:01:11 #
Michael10 wrote:
Good then you won't need the antibody treatment when you do get the v***s. I once knew a preacher who handled poisonous snakes, he said God wouldn't let the snake bite him if his faith remained strong. Guess what, one did bite him and it k**led him just as dead as the v*****e deniers who have died from the v***s.
I make that decision when and if that time comes. That's none of YOUR business either.
To quote a person wiser than you..."if you mind your OWN business you'll be...busy all the time."
You busybody people want to put your narrow either/or thinking on everyone else because you seem to lack imagination and analytical thought as well as the very valuable ability to link past experience with the present.
That is YOUR problem and YOUR choice.
And WTF do snakehandlers have to do with anything?
Sep 20, 2021 12:07:21 #
EmilyD wrote:
You're posting what YOU think is the t***h. What i... (show quote)
Arrogant little busybodies wanting to live vicariously through their "leaders".
Sep 20, 2021 12:47:02 #
EmilyD, what I'm posting is backed by science, not just a few but the majority of scientists and Doctors back my posts. I'm no bully and if you think telling the t***h is bullying, I can't help you and as long as I see others posting what they think about the v*****e, I'll post what I think.
You call me a busybody but you twist stories like I tagged you on a few days ago. What I post I can hold science to back it up I don't have to cherrypick a story apart, like you, to get my point across.
You call me a busybody but you twist stories like I tagged you on a few days ago. What I post I can hold science to back it up I don't have to cherrypick a story apart, like you, to get my point across.
Sep 20, 2021 12:55:30 #
Michael10 wrote:
EmilyD, what I'm posting is backed by science, not... (show quote)
To justify your self righteousness you call information you're unfamiliar with "cherry-picked".
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