Thread by @celinegounder

1/ Great thread here by my old friend @CharlesBHolmes.
Regeneron's press release (not a study!) didn't comment on side-effects. With other monoclonal antibodies, side-effects have included fever, chills, weakness, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure, & rash.

2/ More severe side-effects may include: life-threatening anaphylaxis, cytokine release syndrome (also caused by COVID), cardiac toxicity, clotting dysfunction, immune-related effects, infections, autoimmunity, and off-target effects.

3/ The Regeneron monoclonal antibody cocktail is so new we don't yet have data on its side-effects. And it hasn't been tested in older patients, like the president.

4/ Yes, monoclonal antibodies are a promising approach for the treatment of COVID (more here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s1e…), but I find it perplexing that such an experimental drug with unknown risk profile would be given to the president.

5/ I also think it's strange that the decision to treat the president with monoclonal antibodies was made without consultation with an infectious disease specialist or members of the WH Coronavirus Taskforce, who are among the world's leading experts (e.g. Dr. Fauci).

6/ It's certainly possible that the president's decompensation and need for hospitalization could be due to the monoclonal antibody cocktail, but in the absence of information and transparency on the part of the WH, it's impossible to know.