Trump’s Experimental Treatments: Here’s What You Should Know

“We shouldn’t be treating the President as a guinea pig and experimenting on him”

Alexandra Sifferlin
Medium Coronavirus Blog

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Credit: ULRICH PERREY / Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s treatment for his Covid-19 infection is already unusual. The president’s care team has confirmed that he has received two treatments within the last 24 hours (as well as other supplements). First, he was given an experimental antibody cocktail from the biotech company Regeneron. It was announced later on Friday that his team was also initiating treatment with remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral medication developed by Gilead Sciences.

While it might make sense that the President’s team to decide to use an experimental therapy, two in such a short period of time is raising concerns.

“People will see this and think that this is the treatment you should have, and that if we don’t give it to other people with coronavirus, that we are denying them special treatment and in reality that’s not the case,” said Jeremy Faust, MD, MS, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Friday. “We shouldn’t be treating the President as a guinea pig and experimenting on him.”

Here’s what we know about the two treatments.

Regeneron’s antibody cocktail

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Alexandra Sifferlin
Medium Coronavirus Blog

Health and science journalist. Former editor of Medium’s Covid-19 Blog and deputy editor at Elemental. TIME Magazine writer before that