Uncertainties: ‘COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma’ Study

Early indicators have been released from a clinical study which collected, distributed and administered ‘COVID-19 convalescent plasma’ as investigational treatment to 8,932 patients confirmed COVID-19 positive. The study, which reports data from the first 5,000 of those study patients, was a joint trial run by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (USFDA), the Mayo Clinic, and national blood banking entities such as the American Red Cross. Study patients were all COVID-19 positive, severely ill or quickly progressing to life-threatening stages of the illness.

While the study’s clinical findings are important and provide helpful medical knowledge, the use of “convalescent plasma [transfusion] has not yet been demonstrated to be safe as a treatment for COVID-19,” according to written
reports on the initial findings of the study.

Historically a precedence set for transfusing plasma from individuals recovered from infectious diseases into individuals severely ill with the same infection occurred in the 1890’s. This approach, known as passive antibody therapy, was successfully found to reduce the number of deaths during the 1918 influenza outbreak,

In the absence of more effective treatments, passive antibody therapy/convalescent plasma has been used in recent viral epidemics such as MERS and SARS-CoV-1. Yet, its effectiveness against COVID-19 is inconclusive and awaits broader study. Historically, the advent and development of antimicrobial therapy, in the 1940’s, has superseded convalescent plasma use.

Due to decades of economic looting and a failure to develop and advance productive living standards, and foster the productive powers of labor, we now face the present global CoVID-19 pandemic. To successfully address COVID-19’s multi-facetted symptoms and anomalous complications, and other similar biological threats mandates support for and the adoption of the LaRouche-led initiatives including “A Solution for the Medical and Economic Breakdown.”