TampaBay.com…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday essentially barred health care providers from using two monoclonal antibody therapies that have been central to Florida’s effort to fight COVID-19 — but that experts say have not been effective against the omicron variant.
As a result, the federal government said it would not send more of those monoclonal therapies, which are manufactured by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, to the 50 states or territories this week.
Florida officials were not happy.
“Florida disagrees with the decision to halt Regen-COV in the absence of clinically-based evidence, which to date has not been provided by the FDA,” deputy secretary for health Kenneth Scheppke wrote in a letter to Biden administration health officials Monday. “Such decisions from the federal level continue to (be) made in this haphazard manner.”
