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They Shunned Covid Vaccines but Embraced Antibody Treatment

entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
59,979
This is leading to shortage as well. Especially as COVID rages in the Southern US.

Lanson Jones did not think that the coronavirus would come for him. An avid tennis player in Houston who had not caught so much as a cold during the pandemic, he had refused a vaccine because he worried that it would spoil his streak of good health.

But contracting Covid shattered his faith in his body's defenses — so much so that Mr. 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 year-old, laboratory-created drug no less experimental than the vaccine. In a glass-walled enclosure at Houston Methodist Hospital this month, Mr. Jones, 65, became one of more than a million patients, including Donald J. Trump and Joe Rogan, to receive an antibody infusion as the virus has battered the United States.

Vaccine-resistant Americans are turning to the treatment with a zeal that has, at times, mystified their doctors, chasing down lengthy infusions after rejecting vaccines 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.
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It's 2100 dollars per dose, which the US Government is subsidizing.

he 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 percent 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," Kody Kinsley, who leads operations for North Carolina's Covid-19 response, said in an interview. "I think what has happened is a classic logistics issue, where all of a sudden there's much more demand."

Amid a din of antivaccine falsehoods, monoclonal antibodies have become the rare coronavirus 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.
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www.nytimes.com

They Shunned Covid Vaccines but Embraced Antibody Treatment (Published 2021)

Championed by doctors and conservative radio hosts alike, monoclonal antibodies for Covid are in high demand — even from those who don’t want a vaccine.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

America continues to be wild, man. Free vaccines everywhere, yet these fools are wasting precious resources.
 
Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,688
You should not be able to get free or subsidized treatment from the government if you not have taken the vaccine. Make the antivaxxers pay for it.
 
Gwarm

Gwarm

Member
Nov 13, 2017
2,150
Funny thing, I received notice that the supply chain has been disrupted and there won't be any more shipments of the antibody therapy for some time. Guess we'll have to double up on ivermectic.
 
Pop-O-Matic

Pop-O-Matic

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,861
Whoever is in charge of the antivaxx/horse dewormer psyop needs to adjust for this. Claim antibody treatments are just as bad as the vaccine, and that ventilators are filled with cyanide gas or some shit.
 
Sirhc

Sirhc

Hasn't made a thread yet. Shame me.
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,050
Chiaroscuro said:
You should not be able to get free or subsidized treatment from the government if you not have taken the vaccine. Make the antivaxxers pay for it.
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For fucking real, vaccine is readily available for free and these fuckers are making us pay 2 grand a fucking dose for their stupidity.
 
OP
OP
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
59,979
Sirhc said:
For fucking real, vaccine is readily available for free and these fuckers are making us pay 2 grand a fucking dose for their stupidity.
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I know the article is paid walled for non subscribers, but it basically says that without the government involved, this will never happen. The for profit healthcare system can't support.

insurance companies will also not support since vaccines are freely available.

it's ironic that a good swath of the vaccine hesistant vote for the party of no to small government.
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
49,972
kmfdmpig said:
On Era the idea that this is a white-person phenomenon only is vastly overstated as the data does not really support that view.
covid.cdc.gov

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.
covid.cdc.gov
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Thanks for posting this; never saw it before. Seeing that American Indians, one of the most abused racial groups in America, seem to be the worst in terms of hesitancy makes me feel very averse to the idea of condemning them for it. White Qanon people, sure, mock them and dance on their grave, I'm not going to blame anyone else there.

Has there been anything about why their hesitancy level is so high? Is it sheerly distrust of government? Has there been significant effort to tailor communication to them in order to curb that hesitancy?

EDIT:
Found this.

www.healthaffairs.org

Native Americans And COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Pathways Toward Increasing Vaccination Rates For Native Communities | Health Affairs Blog

Native Americans across the US have been uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. New data from the American COVID-19 Vaccine Poll provides new insights on Native American vaccine hesitancy and the need for culturally relevant outreach and education campaigns to increase vaccination rates...
www.healthaffairs.org
 
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Strong Island

Member
May 11, 2020
656
As a physician I'm just so perplexed at people pumping in a marginally tested treatment in monoclonal antibodies versus vaccines which have been tested across 100s of thousands of people. That architect in that article is not intelligent- his plan is to get another infusion if he gets sick instead of preventing illness?

I don't get people in this country sometimes. I just saw a patient early 40s who was on ECMO survive- however he's got a trach and there's a good chance his life won't ever be the same. Why would you ever want to risk that and cross your fingers that monoclonal antibodies would work? Monoclonal antibodies are a very useful therapeutic but they won't scale up in the midst of a pandemic.

As others said, this is not something most health care centers will do since it's so resource intensive and really eats up valuable resources. Relying on this instead of vaccines is a giant public health blunder (see Florida).
 
cameron

cameron

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
23,810
In a glass-walled enclosure at Houston Methodist Hospital this month, Mr. Jones, 65, became one of more than a million patients, including Donald J. Trump and Joe Rogan, to receive an antibody infusion as the virus has battered the United States.
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Vaccine-resistant Americans are turning to the treatment with a zeal that has, at times, mystified their doctors, chasing down lengthy infusions after rejecting vaccines that cost one-hundredth as much.
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It's not a mystery.
 
hurlex

hurlex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,143
Oh so this is why DeSantis was bitching that the Biden administration reduced Florida's supply of antibody treatment. I was wondering what the hell he was talking about.
 
thesoapster

thesoapster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,904
MD, USA
I recently overhead a large, middle-aged couple talking about not getting vaccinated. "Well they say the antibodies are better than the vaccine, which makes sense when you think about it." Never mind the horrible "logic" happening here. Of course there are shortages of Regeneron. And there's a good chance either of them will actually die if they get covid.
 
Jedi2016

Jedi2016

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,614
Someone at work was saying this same thing. That it was somehow better to wait until you got sick and then get the antibody treatment instead of just.. not getting sick in the first place.

They're just spouting what they're told by right-wing media. These people can't think for themselves. The only difference he could point out was that Democrats weren't trying to get people to get the antibody treatment. So I guess it's not part of whatever conspiracy they think is going on.
 
PAFenix

PAFenix

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Nov 21, 2019
14,610
julian said:
Something about "no less experimental than the vaccine" really bugs me
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I understand the annoyance to call these things experimental, but it's to show the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxers. They tout that the vaccine is a government experiment and that there "hasn't been enough studies" to determine "problems down the road." (such as that stupid sterilization fear) Yet they are perfectly fine taking the anti-body treatment which is Just As New as the vaccine, but somehow that's okay and they aren't worried about "problems down the road" for that.

(Also, hasn't it been a thing in recent years that relying too much on anti-biotics has caused our bodies to become resistant to some medications?)
 
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shinken

shinken

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,917
Anti-vaxxers are fucking hypocrites. They keep spreading misinformation and talk about "my freedom", "my body, my choice", yet a lot of them are pro-life and women have no say with their own bodies (abortion). Fuck off!
 
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,748
PAFenix said:
I understand the annoyance to call these things experimental, but it's to show the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxers. They tout that the vaccine is a government experiment and that there "hasn't been enough studies" to determine "problems down the road." (such as that stupid sterilization fear) Yet they are perfectly fine taking the anti-body treatment which is Just As New as the vaccine, but somehow that's okay and they aren't worried about "problems down the road" for that.

(Also, hasn't it been a thing in recent years that relying too much on anti-biotics has caused our bodies to become resistant to some medications?)
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I know what you mean but the phrasing can be read as them both being equally experimental- which they're not. The vaccine has had more studies at this point. And it inherently makes them both sound risky. Just bugs me.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,904
Chiaroscuro said:
You should not be able to get free or subsidized treatment from the government if you not have taken the vaccine. Make the antivaxxers pay for it.
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That would just be denying treatment to people who need it since the whole reason this treatment is used is because the patients aren't or can't be vaccinated and they're already quite sick. The amount of vaccinated people who would need it is super small.
 
BWoog

BWoog

Member
Oct 27, 2017
38,264
"BIG PHARMA is just trying to make money with their phony vaccines, which is why I'm going to take Ivermectin, Regeneron, Monoclonal Anti-Bodies, Hydroxichloriquin, etc etc"
 
Sheepinator

Sheepinator

Member
Jul 25, 2018
27,941
Most of them don't want govt paying for things, and want govt out of their lives. Well, they can pay for the treatment themselves. Without their usual GoFundMe's I mean.
 
Teh_Lurv

Teh_Lurv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,094
It's not really a mystery; Trump got treated with antibodies and he sung their praises on the 2020 campaign trail. OTOH, he got the vaccine in secret and only made a half-hearted attempt to promote vaccination.
 
Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,688
Dyle said:
That would just be denying treatment to people who need it since the whole reason this treatment is used is because the patients aren't or can't be vaccinated and they're already quite sick. The amount of vaccinated people who would need it is super small.
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I did not say deny treatment I said make them pay for it. Of course it would lead to a lot of bankruptcies but the whole point would be to force people to reconsider their choice about not getting the vaccine, seeing the prospect of an huge bill otherwise. And I also didn't mean for people that can't have the vaccine for valid reasons. But yeah, hard to do it anyway for several reasons.
 
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