RELATED: Red Cross asking recovered COVID-19 patients to donate plasma, citing shortage amid doubled demandThe problem: This wasn’t a formal study.
The patients were treated in different ways in hospitals around the country as part of a Food and Drug Administration program designed to speed access to the experimental therapy.
That so-called “expanded access” program tracks what happens to the recipients, but it cannot prove the plasma — and not other care they received — was the real reason for improvement.AdvertisementRigorous studies underway around the country are designed to get that proof, by comparing similar patients randomly assigned to get plasma or a dummy infusion in addition to regular care.