Chris Lange, FISM News
The Biden administration has instituted guidelines which prioritize “non-whites” in the distribution of the nation’s limited supply of potentially-lifesaving COVID-19 treatments, with the new guidance already being implemented in some states.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month added “race or ethnicity” to “high risk” factors that must be applied to determinations as to who qualifies for antibody and antiviral treatment that could mean the difference between life and death for some patients. An FDA fact sheet issued to healthcare providers approved emergency use authorizations of sotrovimab – a monoclonal antibody that has proven successful in the treatment of the Omicron variant – to “high risk” patients based on guidance from the White House.
Additionally, new COVID treatment guidelines coming out of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene list an individual’s race and ethnicity among “risk factors” to be considered in prescribing monoclonal antibodies and oral antiviral medication, including Molnupiravir and Paxlovid. Healthcare providers are instructed to “consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk,” adding that the treatments have been successful in reducing hospitalizations and deaths.
The Health Dept. touted its commitment to racial equity in a “Request for Proposals” published last month, which states that the agency “is committed to improving health outcomes for all New Yorkers by explicitly advancing racial equity and social justice. Racial equity does not mean simply treating everyone equally, but rather, allocating resources and services in such a way that explicitly addresses barriers imposed by structural racism (i.e. policies and institutional practices that perpetuate racial inequity) and White privilege,” it read.
The race-based directive has already begun to affect patient care. A Staten Island doctor told the New York Post that he recently filled two prescriptions for Paxlovid and was forced to disclose the race of his patients before the treatment was authorized.
“In my 30 years of being a physician I have never been asked that question when I have prescribed any treatment,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity. “The mere fact of having to ask this question is a slippery slope.”
In a public notice issued last week, the NYC Health Dept. warned of “severe supply shortages for all COVID-19 outpatient therapeutics” and said “Non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor” in addition to obesity, age, and other comorbidities.
The segregated COVID treatment distribution guidelines have also been implemented in other states, with more expected to follow suit.
The State of Utah in September issued guidelines for monoclonal antibody treatment distribution in which residents who are “non-white race or Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity” receive two additional points over white patients when calculating their “COVID-19 risk score.”
Similarly, an “Ethical Framework for Allocation of Monoclonal Antibodies” issued by the Minnesota Health Dept. establishes “race and ethnicity” as eligibility factors for treatment.
Harvard epidemiologist and professor Martin Kulldorff told the Post that, while he agrees treatment availability should be risk-factor based, biological race itself is not a risk factor in terms of the coronavirus.
“I have not seen [race] as one of the risk factors for severe disease and death,” he said, adding that it is policy, not biology, that poses the greatest risk to minorities. “The reason that a lot of African Americans have died in New York — which is true — is because the rich people and more affluent were working from home while the working class were exposed,” he said. “The lockdowns have discriminated against minorities. Basically, they have discriminated against the working class, and minorities are a bigger proportion of the working class.”
“It’s just absurd and it shows this is not about public health,” said New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Guiliani (R). “This has not been about the health of New Yorkers from the get-go. Politics before the health and safety of New Yorkers. It continues from the Cuomo administration to the Hochul administration with these new laws.”