Dr. Ben Carson on using blood plasma to treat COVID-19
FDA approves treatment; coronavirus task force member and HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson weighs in.
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Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson told "The Story" Wednesday that there is promise in a new therapy to fight the coronavirus contagion.
Earlier this week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans for a medical trial in which blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients would be collected and injected into patients being treated for the virus, in hopes that the antibodies in the donor's plasma would help the host fight the infection.
"It is promising [and] the concept actually makes a lot of sense," Carson told host Martha MacCallum.
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Carson said the practice worked well during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic as well as in the smaller-scale SARS outbreak in 2002.
"It cut down on the severity and the duration of symptoms," he said.
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"If you had it and you've gotten over that, then obviously your immune system has kicked in and you have some significant antibodies against the viral antigen and those tend to last much longer than the antigen does," Carson said. "Therefore, if you can transfer that -- that's going to require significant coordination with the blood banks because they have to type the plasma and various things like that -- we should be able to get some very quick results."
Carson also praised the Food & Drug Administration, which under the direction of Commissioner Stephen Hahn has been doing "a yeoman's job" throughout the epidemic.
"There are more than 100 different therapies being looked at right now [by the FDA]. I think we are going to come up with something."
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