Trump to announce Covid plasma treatment authorization

President Donald Trump will announce on Sunday that a new coronavirus treatment involving blood plasma donated by people who’ve recovered from the disease has received an emergency use authorization from U.S. regulators.

Trump will make the announcement at a press conference due to start at 5:30 p.m. in Washinton, said two people familiar with the situation who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to clear for use with certain patients what’s known as convalescent plasma. The move would make it easier for patients to get the product, which Trump has touted even though its effectiveness hasn’t been proven.

Trump’s chief of staff earlier blamed federal bureaucrats for slowing the U.S. response to the virus pandemic, which has killed more than 175,000 Americans so far, ahead of what had been touted as a "therapeutic breakthrough.”

After Trump claimed Saturday that FDA employees were engineering delays to sabotage his re-election, Mark Meadows said the president’s Twitter comment reflected "frustration” with bureaucrats there.

"They want to do things the way they’ve always done it,” Meadows said on ABC’s "This Week.” "This president is about cutting red tape. That’s what the tweet was all about.”
Major Breakthrough

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Saturday on Twitter that Trump would announce a "major therapeutic breakthrough” against Covid-19. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar will also attend, she said.

Meadows suggested part of the reason Trump tweeted about the FDA on Saturday is that he wants to make federal health agencies "feel the heat” to deliver results.

On "Fox News Sunday,” Meadows said, "the announcement that’s coming today should have been made several weeks ago.”

"It was a fumble by a number of people in the federal government that should have done it differently, and having been personally involved with it, sometimes you have to make them feel the heat if they don’t see the light,” he said.

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS that there were "perceived delays” in making the authorization for blood plasma because of worries among top health officials.

"It was reported this week that [the National Institutes of Health] had misgivings about FDA going forward with that authorization. But there are reasons people have some questions,” Gottlieb said on "Face the Nation.” "The trial that -- that’s going to be based on, 70,000 patients, wasn’t a very vigorously done trial.”

The emergency use order will probably allow more commercial distribution "and it will allow manufacturers of plasma products to more easily recoup the cost,” he said. "But the bottom line is, it’s widely available right now. Patients are getting it.”