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US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin's 'Ability to Kill Cancer Cells'
US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin's 'Ability to Kill Cancer Cells'
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the federal research agency charged with leading the war against the nation’s second-largest killer, is studying ivermectin as a potential cancer treatment, according to its top official.
“There are enough reports of it, enough interest in it, that we actually did — ivermectin, in particular — did engage in sort of a better preclinical study of its properties and its ability to kill cancer cells,” said Anthony Letai, a physician the Trump administration appointed as NCI director in September.
Letai did not cite new evidence that might have prompted the institute to research the effectiveness of the antiparasitic drug against cancer. The drug, largely used to treat people or animals for infections caused by parasites, is a popular dewormer for horses.
“We’ll probably have those results in a few months,” Letai said. “So we are taking it seriously.”
He spoke about ivermectin at a January 30 event, “Reclaiming Science: The People’s NIH,” with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya and other senior agency officials at Washington, DC’s Willard Hotel. The MAHA Institute hosted the discussion, framed by the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda of Health and Human Services (HSS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The National Cancer Institute is the largest of the NIH’s 27 branches.
During the COVID pandemic, ivermectin’s popularity surged as fringe medical groups promoted it as an effective treatment. Clinical trials have found it isn’t effective against COVID.
Ivermectin has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among MAHA adherents and conservatives. Like-minded commentators and wellness and other online influencers have hyped — without evidence — ivermectin as a miracle cure for a host of diseases, including cancer. Trump officials have pointed to research on ivermectin as an example of the administration’s receptiveness to ideas the scientific establishment has rejected.
“If lots of people believe it and it’s moving public health, we as NIH have an obligation, again, to treat it seriously,” Bhattacharya said at the event. According to The Chronicle at Duke University, Bhattacharya recently said he wants the NIH to be “the research arm of MAHA.”
The decision by the world’s premier cancer research institute to study ivermectin as a cancer treatment has alarmed career scientists at the agency.
“I am shocked and appalled,” one NCI scientist said. “We are moving funds away from so much promising research in order to do a preclinical study based on nonscientific ideas. It’s absurd.”
KFF Health News granted the scientist and other NCI workers anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press and fear retaliation.
HHS and the National Cancer Institute did not answer KFF Health News’ questions on the amount of money the cancer institute is spending on the study, who is carrying it out, and whether there was new evidence that prompted NCI to look into ivermectin as an anticancer therapy. Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said NIH is dedicated to “rigorous, gold-standard research,” something the administration has repeatedly professed.
A preclinical study is an early phase of research conducted in a lab to test whether a drug or treatment may be useful and to assess potential harms. These studies take place before human clinical trials.
The scientist questioned whether there is enough initial evidence to warrant NCI’s spending of taxpayer funds to investigate the drug’s potential as a cancer treatment.
The FDA has approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals. Tablets are used to treat conditions caused by parasitic worms, and the FDA has approved ivermectin lotions to treat lice and rosacea. Two scientists involved in its discovery won the Nobel Prize in 2015, tied to the drug’s success in treating certain parasitic diseases.
The FDA has warned that large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous. Overdoses can cause seizures, comas, or death.
Kennedy, supporters of the MAHA movement, and some conservative commentators have promoted the idea that the government and pharmaceutical companies quashed ivermectin and other inexpensive, off-patent drugs because they’re not profitable for the drug industry.
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote in an October 2024 X post that has since gone viral. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
Previous laboratory research has shown that ivermectin could have anticancer effects because it promotes cell death and inhibits the growth of tumor cells. “It actually has been studied both with NIH funds and outside of NIH funds,” Letai said.
However, there is no evidence that ivermectin is safe and effective in treating cancer in humans. Preliminary data from a small clinical trial that gave ivermectin to patients with one type of metastatic breast cancer, in combination with immunotherapy, found no significant benefit from the addition of ivermectin.
Some physicians are concerned that patients will delay or forgo effective cancer treatments, or be harmed in other ways, if they believe unfounded claims that ivermectin can treat their disease.
“Many, many, many things work in a test tube. Quite a few things work in a mouse or a monkey. It still doesn’t mean it’s going to work in people,” said Jeffery Edenfield, executive medical director of oncology for the South Carolina-based Prisma Health Cancer Institute.
Edenfield said cancer patients ask him about ivermectin “regularly,” mostly because of what they see on social media. He said he persuaded a patient to stop using it, and a colleague recently had a patient who decided “to forgo highly effective standard therapy in favor of ivermectin.”
“People come to the discussion having largely already made up their mind,” Edenfield said. “We’re in this delicate time when there’s sort of a fundamental mistrust of medicine,” he added. “Some people are just not going to believe me. I just have to keep trying.”
A June letter by clinicians at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio detailed how an adolescent patient with metastatic bone cancer started taking ivermectin “after encountering social media posts touting its benefits.” The patient — who hadn’t been given a prescription by a clinician — experienced ivermectin-related neurotoxicity and had to seek emergency care because of nausea, fatigue, and other symptoms.
“We urge the pediatric oncology community to advocate for sensible health policy that prioritizes the well-being of our patients,” the clinicians wrote. The lack of evidence about ivermectin and cancer hasn’t stopped celebrities and online influencers from promoting the notion that the drug is a cure-all. On a January 2025 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, actor Mel Gibson claimed that a combination of drugs that included ivermectin cured 3friends with stage IV cancer. The episode has been viewed > 12 million times.
Lawmakers in a handful of states have made the drug available over the counter. And Florida — which, under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, has become a hotbed for anti-vaccine policies and the spread of public health misinformation — announced last fall that the state plans to fund research to study the drug as a potential cancer treatment.
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to questions about that effort.
Letai, previously a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute oncologist, started at the National Cancer Institute after months of upheaval caused by Trump administration policies.
“What you’re hearing at the NIH now is an openness to ideas — even ideas that scientists would say, ‘Oh, there’s no way it could work’ — but nevertheless applying rigorous scientific methods to those ideas,” Bhattacharya said at the January 30 event.
A second NCI scientist, who was granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said the notion that NIH was not open to investigating the value of off-label drugs in cancer is “ridiculous.”
“This is not a new idea they came up with,” the scientist said.
Letai didn’t elaborate on whether NCI scientists are conducting the research or if it has directed funding to an outside institution. Three-fourths of the cancer institute’s research dollars go to outside scientists.
He also aimed to temper expectations.
“At least on a population level,” Letai said, “it’s not going to be a cure-all for cancer.”
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the federal research agency charged with leading the war against the nation’s second-largest killer, is studying ivermectin as a potential cancer treatment, according to its top official.
“There are enough reports of it, enough interest in it, that we actually did — ivermectin, in particular — did engage in sort of a better preclinical study of its properties and its ability to kill cancer cells,” said Anthony Letai, a physician the Trump administration appointed as NCI director in September.
Letai did not cite new evidence that might have prompted the institute to research the effectiveness of the antiparasitic drug against cancer. The drug, largely used to treat people or animals for infections caused by parasites, is a popular dewormer for horses.
“We’ll probably have those results in a few months,” Letai said. “So we are taking it seriously.”
He spoke about ivermectin at a January 30 event, “Reclaiming Science: The People’s NIH,” with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya and other senior agency officials at Washington, DC’s Willard Hotel. The MAHA Institute hosted the discussion, framed by the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda of Health and Human Services (HSS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The National Cancer Institute is the largest of the NIH’s 27 branches.
During the COVID pandemic, ivermectin’s popularity surged as fringe medical groups promoted it as an effective treatment. Clinical trials have found it isn’t effective against COVID.
Ivermectin has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among MAHA adherents and conservatives. Like-minded commentators and wellness and other online influencers have hyped — without evidence — ivermectin as a miracle cure for a host of diseases, including cancer. Trump officials have pointed to research on ivermectin as an example of the administration’s receptiveness to ideas the scientific establishment has rejected.
“If lots of people believe it and it’s moving public health, we as NIH have an obligation, again, to treat it seriously,” Bhattacharya said at the event. According to The Chronicle at Duke University, Bhattacharya recently said he wants the NIH to be “the research arm of MAHA.”
The decision by the world’s premier cancer research institute to study ivermectin as a cancer treatment has alarmed career scientists at the agency.
“I am shocked and appalled,” one NCI scientist said. “We are moving funds away from so much promising research in order to do a preclinical study based on nonscientific ideas. It’s absurd.”
KFF Health News granted the scientist and other NCI workers anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press and fear retaliation.
HHS and the National Cancer Institute did not answer KFF Health News’ questions on the amount of money the cancer institute is spending on the study, who is carrying it out, and whether there was new evidence that prompted NCI to look into ivermectin as an anticancer therapy. Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said NIH is dedicated to “rigorous, gold-standard research,” something the administration has repeatedly professed.
A preclinical study is an early phase of research conducted in a lab to test whether a drug or treatment may be useful and to assess potential harms. These studies take place before human clinical trials.
The scientist questioned whether there is enough initial evidence to warrant NCI’s spending of taxpayer funds to investigate the drug’s potential as a cancer treatment.
The FDA has approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals. Tablets are used to treat conditions caused by parasitic worms, and the FDA has approved ivermectin lotions to treat lice and rosacea. Two scientists involved in its discovery won the Nobel Prize in 2015, tied to the drug’s success in treating certain parasitic diseases.
The FDA has warned that large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous. Overdoses can cause seizures, comas, or death.
Kennedy, supporters of the MAHA movement, and some conservative commentators have promoted the idea that the government and pharmaceutical companies quashed ivermectin and other inexpensive, off-patent drugs because they’re not profitable for the drug industry.
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote in an October 2024 X post that has since gone viral. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
Previous laboratory research has shown that ivermectin could have anticancer effects because it promotes cell death and inhibits the growth of tumor cells. “It actually has been studied both with NIH funds and outside of NIH funds,” Letai said.
However, there is no evidence that ivermectin is safe and effective in treating cancer in humans. Preliminary data from a small clinical trial that gave ivermectin to patients with one type of metastatic breast cancer, in combination with immunotherapy, found no significant benefit from the addition of ivermectin.
Some physicians are concerned that patients will delay or forgo effective cancer treatments, or be harmed in other ways, if they believe unfounded claims that ivermectin can treat their disease.
“Many, many, many things work in a test tube. Quite a few things work in a mouse or a monkey. It still doesn’t mean it’s going to work in people,” said Jeffery Edenfield, executive medical director of oncology for the South Carolina-based Prisma Health Cancer Institute.
Edenfield said cancer patients ask him about ivermectin “regularly,” mostly because of what they see on social media. He said he persuaded a patient to stop using it, and a colleague recently had a patient who decided “to forgo highly effective standard therapy in favor of ivermectin.”
“People come to the discussion having largely already made up their mind,” Edenfield said. “We’re in this delicate time when there’s sort of a fundamental mistrust of medicine,” he added. “Some people are just not going to believe me. I just have to keep trying.”
A June letter by clinicians at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio detailed how an adolescent patient with metastatic bone cancer started taking ivermectin “after encountering social media posts touting its benefits.” The patient — who hadn’t been given a prescription by a clinician — experienced ivermectin-related neurotoxicity and had to seek emergency care because of nausea, fatigue, and other symptoms.
“We urge the pediatric oncology community to advocate for sensible health policy that prioritizes the well-being of our patients,” the clinicians wrote. The lack of evidence about ivermectin and cancer hasn’t stopped celebrities and online influencers from promoting the notion that the drug is a cure-all. On a January 2025 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, actor Mel Gibson claimed that a combination of drugs that included ivermectin cured 3friends with stage IV cancer. The episode has been viewed > 12 million times.
Lawmakers in a handful of states have made the drug available over the counter. And Florida — which, under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, has become a hotbed for anti-vaccine policies and the spread of public health misinformation — announced last fall that the state plans to fund research to study the drug as a potential cancer treatment.
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to questions about that effort.
Letai, previously a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute oncologist, started at the National Cancer Institute after months of upheaval caused by Trump administration policies.
“What you’re hearing at the NIH now is an openness to ideas — even ideas that scientists would say, ‘Oh, there’s no way it could work’ — but nevertheless applying rigorous scientific methods to those ideas,” Bhattacharya said at the January 30 event.
A second NCI scientist, who was granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said the notion that NIH was not open to investigating the value of off-label drugs in cancer is “ridiculous.”
“This is not a new idea they came up with,” the scientist said.
Letai didn’t elaborate on whether NCI scientists are conducting the research or if it has directed funding to an outside institution. Three-fourths of the cancer institute’s research dollars go to outside scientists.
He also aimed to temper expectations.
“At least on a population level,” Letai said, “it’s not going to be a cure-all for cancer.”
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the federal research agency charged with leading the war against the nation’s second-largest killer, is studying ivermectin as a potential cancer treatment, according to its top official.
“There are enough reports of it, enough interest in it, that we actually did — ivermectin, in particular — did engage in sort of a better preclinical study of its properties and its ability to kill cancer cells,” said Anthony Letai, a physician the Trump administration appointed as NCI director in September.
Letai did not cite new evidence that might have prompted the institute to research the effectiveness of the antiparasitic drug against cancer. The drug, largely used to treat people or animals for infections caused by parasites, is a popular dewormer for horses.
“We’ll probably have those results in a few months,” Letai said. “So we are taking it seriously.”
He spoke about ivermectin at a January 30 event, “Reclaiming Science: The People’s NIH,” with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya and other senior agency officials at Washington, DC’s Willard Hotel. The MAHA Institute hosted the discussion, framed by the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda of Health and Human Services (HSS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The National Cancer Institute is the largest of the NIH’s 27 branches.
During the COVID pandemic, ivermectin’s popularity surged as fringe medical groups promoted it as an effective treatment. Clinical trials have found it isn’t effective against COVID.
Ivermectin has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among MAHA adherents and conservatives. Like-minded commentators and wellness and other online influencers have hyped — without evidence — ivermectin as a miracle cure for a host of diseases, including cancer. Trump officials have pointed to research on ivermectin as an example of the administration’s receptiveness to ideas the scientific establishment has rejected.
“If lots of people believe it and it’s moving public health, we as NIH have an obligation, again, to treat it seriously,” Bhattacharya said at the event. According to The Chronicle at Duke University, Bhattacharya recently said he wants the NIH to be “the research arm of MAHA.”
The decision by the world’s premier cancer research institute to study ivermectin as a cancer treatment has alarmed career scientists at the agency.
“I am shocked and appalled,” one NCI scientist said. “We are moving funds away from so much promising research in order to do a preclinical study based on nonscientific ideas. It’s absurd.”
KFF Health News granted the scientist and other NCI workers anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press and fear retaliation.
HHS and the National Cancer Institute did not answer KFF Health News’ questions on the amount of money the cancer institute is spending on the study, who is carrying it out, and whether there was new evidence that prompted NCI to look into ivermectin as an anticancer therapy. Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said NIH is dedicated to “rigorous, gold-standard research,” something the administration has repeatedly professed.
A preclinical study is an early phase of research conducted in a lab to test whether a drug or treatment may be useful and to assess potential harms. These studies take place before human clinical trials.
The scientist questioned whether there is enough initial evidence to warrant NCI’s spending of taxpayer funds to investigate the drug’s potential as a cancer treatment.
The FDA has approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals. Tablets are used to treat conditions caused by parasitic worms, and the FDA has approved ivermectin lotions to treat lice and rosacea. Two scientists involved in its discovery won the Nobel Prize in 2015, tied to the drug’s success in treating certain parasitic diseases.
The FDA has warned that large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous. Overdoses can cause seizures, comas, or death.
Kennedy, supporters of the MAHA movement, and some conservative commentators have promoted the idea that the government and pharmaceutical companies quashed ivermectin and other inexpensive, off-patent drugs because they’re not profitable for the drug industry.
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote in an October 2024 X post that has since gone viral. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
Previous laboratory research has shown that ivermectin could have anticancer effects because it promotes cell death and inhibits the growth of tumor cells. “It actually has been studied both with NIH funds and outside of NIH funds,” Letai said.
However, there is no evidence that ivermectin is safe and effective in treating cancer in humans. Preliminary data from a small clinical trial that gave ivermectin to patients with one type of metastatic breast cancer, in combination with immunotherapy, found no significant benefit from the addition of ivermectin.
Some physicians are concerned that patients will delay or forgo effective cancer treatments, or be harmed in other ways, if they believe unfounded claims that ivermectin can treat their disease.
“Many, many, many things work in a test tube. Quite a few things work in a mouse or a monkey. It still doesn’t mean it’s going to work in people,” said Jeffery Edenfield, executive medical director of oncology for the South Carolina-based Prisma Health Cancer Institute.
Edenfield said cancer patients ask him about ivermectin “regularly,” mostly because of what they see on social media. He said he persuaded a patient to stop using it, and a colleague recently had a patient who decided “to forgo highly effective standard therapy in favor of ivermectin.”
“People come to the discussion having largely already made up their mind,” Edenfield said. “We’re in this delicate time when there’s sort of a fundamental mistrust of medicine,” he added. “Some people are just not going to believe me. I just have to keep trying.”
A June letter by clinicians at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio detailed how an adolescent patient with metastatic bone cancer started taking ivermectin “after encountering social media posts touting its benefits.” The patient — who hadn’t been given a prescription by a clinician — experienced ivermectin-related neurotoxicity and had to seek emergency care because of nausea, fatigue, and other symptoms.
“We urge the pediatric oncology community to advocate for sensible health policy that prioritizes the well-being of our patients,” the clinicians wrote. The lack of evidence about ivermectin and cancer hasn’t stopped celebrities and online influencers from promoting the notion that the drug is a cure-all. On a January 2025 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, actor Mel Gibson claimed that a combination of drugs that included ivermectin cured 3friends with stage IV cancer. The episode has been viewed > 12 million times.
Lawmakers in a handful of states have made the drug available over the counter. And Florida — which, under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, has become a hotbed for anti-vaccine policies and the spread of public health misinformation — announced last fall that the state plans to fund research to study the drug as a potential cancer treatment.
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to questions about that effort.
Letai, previously a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute oncologist, started at the National Cancer Institute after months of upheaval caused by Trump administration policies.
“What you’re hearing at the NIH now is an openness to ideas — even ideas that scientists would say, ‘Oh, there’s no way it could work’ — but nevertheless applying rigorous scientific methods to those ideas,” Bhattacharya said at the January 30 event.
A second NCI scientist, who was granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said the notion that NIH was not open to investigating the value of off-label drugs in cancer is “ridiculous.”
“This is not a new idea they came up with,” the scientist said.
Letai didn’t elaborate on whether NCI scientists are conducting the research or if it has directed funding to an outside institution. Three-fourths of the cancer institute’s research dollars go to outside scientists.
He also aimed to temper expectations.
“At least on a population level,” Letai said, “it’s not going to be a cure-all for cancer.”
US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin's 'Ability to Kill Cancer Cells'
US Cancer Institute Studying Ivermectin's 'Ability to Kill Cancer Cells'
Inside the flawed White House testing scheme that did not protect Trump
The president has said others are tested before getting close to him, appearing to hold it as an iron shield of safety. He has largely eschewed mask-wearing and social distancing in meetings, travel and public events, while holding rallies for thousands of often maskless supporters.
The Trump administration has increasingly pinned its coronavirus testing strategy for the nation on antigen tests, which do not need a traditional lab for processing and quickly return results to patients. But the results are less accurate than those of the slower PCR tests.
An early antigen test used by the White House was woefully inaccurate. But the new antigen test the White House is using has not been independently evaluated for accuracy and reliability. Moreover, this is the kit the Trump administration is pushing out to thousands of nursing homes to test residents and staff.
Testing “isn’t a ‘get out of jail free card,’” said Dr. Alan Wells, medical director of clinical labs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and creator of its test for the novel coronavirus. In general, antigen tests can miss up to half the cases that are detected by polymerase chain reaction tests, depending on the population of patients tested, he said.
The White House said the president’s diagnosis was confirmed with a PCR test but declined to say which test delivered his initial result. The White House has been using a new antigen test from Abbott Laboratories to screen its staff for COVID-19, according to two administration officials.
The test, known as BinaxNOW, received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in August. It produces results in 15 minutes. Yet little is independently known about how effective it is. According to the company, the test is 97% accurate in detecting positives and 98.5% accurate in identifying those without disease. Abbott’s stated performance of its antigen test was based on examining people within 7 days of COVID symptoms appearing.
The president and first lady have both had symptoms, according to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the first lady’s Twitter account. The president was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday evening “out of an abundance of caution,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
Vice President Mike Pence is also tested daily for the virus and tested negative, spokesperson Devin O’Malley said Friday, but he did not respond to a follow-up question about which test was used.
Trump heavily promoted another Abbott rapid testing device, the ID NOW, earlier this year. But that test relies on different technology than the newer Abbott antigen test.
“I have not seen any independent evaluation of the Binax assay in the literature or in the blogs,” Wells said. “It is an unknown.”
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had signed a $760 million contract with Abbott for 150 million BinaxNOW antigen tests, which are now being distributed to nursing homes and historically black colleges and universities, as well as to governors to help inform decisions about opening and closing schools. The Big Ten football conference has also pinned playing hopes on the deployment of antigen tests following Trump’s political pressure.
However, even senior federal officials concede that a test alone isn’t likely to stop the spread of a virus that has sickened more than 7 million Americans.
“Testing does not substitute for avoiding crowded indoor spaces, washing hands, or wearing a mask when you can’t physically distance; further, a negative test today does not mean that you won’t be positive tomorrow,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the senior HHS official helming the administration’s testing effort, said in a statement at the time.
Trump could be part of a “super-spreading event,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Given the timing of Trump’s positive test — which he announced on Twitter early Friday – his infection “likely happened 5 or more days ago,” Osterholm said. “If so, then he was widely infectious as early as Tuesday,” the day of the first presidential debate in Cleveland.
At least seven people who attended a Rose Garden announcement last Saturday, when Trump announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, have since tested positive for the coronavirus. They include Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, and the president of the University of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins.
“Having that many infected people there all at one time, we’re still going to see transmission coming off that event for a couple days,” Osterholm said.
Osterholm notes that about 20% of infected people lead to 80% of COVID-19 cases, because “super spreaders” can infect so many people at once.
He notes that participants and audience members at Tuesday’s debate were separated by at least 6 feet. But 6 feet isn’t always enough to prevent infection, he said.
While many COVID-19 infections appear to be spread by respiratory droplets, which usually fall to the ground within 6 feet, people who are singing or speaking loudly can project virus much further. Evidence also suggests that the novel coronavirus can spread through aerosols, floating in the air like a speck of dust.
“I wonder how much virus was floating in that room that night,” Osterholm said.
Other experts say it’s too soon to say whether Trump was infected in a super-spreader event. “The president and his wife have had many exposures to many people in enclosed venues without protection,” so they could have been infected at any number of places, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Although Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus with a PCR test Friday, experts note that false-negative results are common in the first few days after infection. Test results over the next several days will yield more useful information.
It can take more than a week for the virus to reproduce enough to be detected, Wells said: “You are probably not detectable for 3, 5, 7, even 10 days after you’re exposed.”
In Minnesota, where Trump held an outdoor campaign rally in Duluth with hundreds of attendees Wednesday, health officials warned that a 14-day quarantine is necessary, regardless of test results.
“Anyone who was a direct contact of President Trump or known COVID-19 cases needs to quarantine and should get tested,” the Minnesota Department of Health said.
Ongoing lapses in test result reporting could hamper efforts to track and isolate sick people. As of Sept. 10, 21 states and the District of Columbia were not reporting all antigen test results, according to a KHN investigation, a lapse in reporting that officials say leaves them blind to disease spread. Since then, public health departments in Arizona, North Carolina and South Dakota all have announced plans to add antigen testing to their case reporting.
Requests for comment to the D.C. Department of Health were referred to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office, which did not respond. District health officials told KHN in early September that the White House does not report antigen test results to them – a potential violation of federal law under the CARES Act, which says any institution performing tests to diagnose COVID-19 must report all results to local or state public health departments.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said it’s not surprising that Trump tested positive, given that so many of his close associates – including his national security adviser and Secret Service officers – have also been infected by the virus.
“When you look at the number of social contacts and travel schedules, it’s not surprising,” Adalja said.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
The president has said others are tested before getting close to him, appearing to hold it as an iron shield of safety. He has largely eschewed mask-wearing and social distancing in meetings, travel and public events, while holding rallies for thousands of often maskless supporters.
The Trump administration has increasingly pinned its coronavirus testing strategy for the nation on antigen tests, which do not need a traditional lab for processing and quickly return results to patients. But the results are less accurate than those of the slower PCR tests.
An early antigen test used by the White House was woefully inaccurate. But the new antigen test the White House is using has not been independently evaluated for accuracy and reliability. Moreover, this is the kit the Trump administration is pushing out to thousands of nursing homes to test residents and staff.
Testing “isn’t a ‘get out of jail free card,’” said Dr. Alan Wells, medical director of clinical labs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and creator of its test for the novel coronavirus. In general, antigen tests can miss up to half the cases that are detected by polymerase chain reaction tests, depending on the population of patients tested, he said.
The White House said the president’s diagnosis was confirmed with a PCR test but declined to say which test delivered his initial result. The White House has been using a new antigen test from Abbott Laboratories to screen its staff for COVID-19, according to two administration officials.
The test, known as BinaxNOW, received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in August. It produces results in 15 minutes. Yet little is independently known about how effective it is. According to the company, the test is 97% accurate in detecting positives and 98.5% accurate in identifying those without disease. Abbott’s stated performance of its antigen test was based on examining people within 7 days of COVID symptoms appearing.
The president and first lady have both had symptoms, according to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the first lady’s Twitter account. The president was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday evening “out of an abundance of caution,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
Vice President Mike Pence is also tested daily for the virus and tested negative, spokesperson Devin O’Malley said Friday, but he did not respond to a follow-up question about which test was used.
Trump heavily promoted another Abbott rapid testing device, the ID NOW, earlier this year. But that test relies on different technology than the newer Abbott antigen test.
“I have not seen any independent evaluation of the Binax assay in the literature or in the blogs,” Wells said. “It is an unknown.”
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had signed a $760 million contract with Abbott for 150 million BinaxNOW antigen tests, which are now being distributed to nursing homes and historically black colleges and universities, as well as to governors to help inform decisions about opening and closing schools. The Big Ten football conference has also pinned playing hopes on the deployment of antigen tests following Trump’s political pressure.
However, even senior federal officials concede that a test alone isn’t likely to stop the spread of a virus that has sickened more than 7 million Americans.
“Testing does not substitute for avoiding crowded indoor spaces, washing hands, or wearing a mask when you can’t physically distance; further, a negative test today does not mean that you won’t be positive tomorrow,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the senior HHS official helming the administration’s testing effort, said in a statement at the time.
Trump could be part of a “super-spreading event,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Given the timing of Trump’s positive test — which he announced on Twitter early Friday – his infection “likely happened 5 or more days ago,” Osterholm said. “If so, then he was widely infectious as early as Tuesday,” the day of the first presidential debate in Cleveland.
At least seven people who attended a Rose Garden announcement last Saturday, when Trump announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, have since tested positive for the coronavirus. They include Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, and the president of the University of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins.
“Having that many infected people there all at one time, we’re still going to see transmission coming off that event for a couple days,” Osterholm said.
Osterholm notes that about 20% of infected people lead to 80% of COVID-19 cases, because “super spreaders” can infect so many people at once.
He notes that participants and audience members at Tuesday’s debate were separated by at least 6 feet. But 6 feet isn’t always enough to prevent infection, he said.
While many COVID-19 infections appear to be spread by respiratory droplets, which usually fall to the ground within 6 feet, people who are singing or speaking loudly can project virus much further. Evidence also suggests that the novel coronavirus can spread through aerosols, floating in the air like a speck of dust.
“I wonder how much virus was floating in that room that night,” Osterholm said.
Other experts say it’s too soon to say whether Trump was infected in a super-spreader event. “The president and his wife have had many exposures to many people in enclosed venues without protection,” so they could have been infected at any number of places, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Although Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus with a PCR test Friday, experts note that false-negative results are common in the first few days after infection. Test results over the next several days will yield more useful information.
It can take more than a week for the virus to reproduce enough to be detected, Wells said: “You are probably not detectable for 3, 5, 7, even 10 days after you’re exposed.”
In Minnesota, where Trump held an outdoor campaign rally in Duluth with hundreds of attendees Wednesday, health officials warned that a 14-day quarantine is necessary, regardless of test results.
“Anyone who was a direct contact of President Trump or known COVID-19 cases needs to quarantine and should get tested,” the Minnesota Department of Health said.
Ongoing lapses in test result reporting could hamper efforts to track and isolate sick people. As of Sept. 10, 21 states and the District of Columbia were not reporting all antigen test results, according to a KHN investigation, a lapse in reporting that officials say leaves them blind to disease spread. Since then, public health departments in Arizona, North Carolina and South Dakota all have announced plans to add antigen testing to their case reporting.
Requests for comment to the D.C. Department of Health were referred to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office, which did not respond. District health officials told KHN in early September that the White House does not report antigen test results to them – a potential violation of federal law under the CARES Act, which says any institution performing tests to diagnose COVID-19 must report all results to local or state public health departments.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said it’s not surprising that Trump tested positive, given that so many of his close associates – including his national security adviser and Secret Service officers – have also been infected by the virus.
“When you look at the number of social contacts and travel schedules, it’s not surprising,” Adalja said.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
The president has said others are tested before getting close to him, appearing to hold it as an iron shield of safety. He has largely eschewed mask-wearing and social distancing in meetings, travel and public events, while holding rallies for thousands of often maskless supporters.
The Trump administration has increasingly pinned its coronavirus testing strategy for the nation on antigen tests, which do not need a traditional lab for processing and quickly return results to patients. But the results are less accurate than those of the slower PCR tests.
An early antigen test used by the White House was woefully inaccurate. But the new antigen test the White House is using has not been independently evaluated for accuracy and reliability. Moreover, this is the kit the Trump administration is pushing out to thousands of nursing homes to test residents and staff.
Testing “isn’t a ‘get out of jail free card,’” said Dr. Alan Wells, medical director of clinical labs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and creator of its test for the novel coronavirus. In general, antigen tests can miss up to half the cases that are detected by polymerase chain reaction tests, depending on the population of patients tested, he said.
The White House said the president’s diagnosis was confirmed with a PCR test but declined to say which test delivered his initial result. The White House has been using a new antigen test from Abbott Laboratories to screen its staff for COVID-19, according to two administration officials.
The test, known as BinaxNOW, received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in August. It produces results in 15 minutes. Yet little is independently known about how effective it is. According to the company, the test is 97% accurate in detecting positives and 98.5% accurate in identifying those without disease. Abbott’s stated performance of its antigen test was based on examining people within 7 days of COVID symptoms appearing.
The president and first lady have both had symptoms, according to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the first lady’s Twitter account. The president was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday evening “out of an abundance of caution,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
Vice President Mike Pence is also tested daily for the virus and tested negative, spokesperson Devin O’Malley said Friday, but he did not respond to a follow-up question about which test was used.
Trump heavily promoted another Abbott rapid testing device, the ID NOW, earlier this year. But that test relies on different technology than the newer Abbott antigen test.
“I have not seen any independent evaluation of the Binax assay in the literature or in the blogs,” Wells said. “It is an unknown.”
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had signed a $760 million contract with Abbott for 150 million BinaxNOW antigen tests, which are now being distributed to nursing homes and historically black colleges and universities, as well as to governors to help inform decisions about opening and closing schools. The Big Ten football conference has also pinned playing hopes on the deployment of antigen tests following Trump’s political pressure.
However, even senior federal officials concede that a test alone isn’t likely to stop the spread of a virus that has sickened more than 7 million Americans.
“Testing does not substitute for avoiding crowded indoor spaces, washing hands, or wearing a mask when you can’t physically distance; further, a negative test today does not mean that you won’t be positive tomorrow,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the senior HHS official helming the administration’s testing effort, said in a statement at the time.
Trump could be part of a “super-spreading event,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Given the timing of Trump’s positive test — which he announced on Twitter early Friday – his infection “likely happened 5 or more days ago,” Osterholm said. “If so, then he was widely infectious as early as Tuesday,” the day of the first presidential debate in Cleveland.
At least seven people who attended a Rose Garden announcement last Saturday, when Trump announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, have since tested positive for the coronavirus. They include Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, and the president of the University of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins.
“Having that many infected people there all at one time, we’re still going to see transmission coming off that event for a couple days,” Osterholm said.
Osterholm notes that about 20% of infected people lead to 80% of COVID-19 cases, because “super spreaders” can infect so many people at once.
He notes that participants and audience members at Tuesday’s debate were separated by at least 6 feet. But 6 feet isn’t always enough to prevent infection, he said.
While many COVID-19 infections appear to be spread by respiratory droplets, which usually fall to the ground within 6 feet, people who are singing or speaking loudly can project virus much further. Evidence also suggests that the novel coronavirus can spread through aerosols, floating in the air like a speck of dust.
“I wonder how much virus was floating in that room that night,” Osterholm said.
Other experts say it’s too soon to say whether Trump was infected in a super-spreader event. “The president and his wife have had many exposures to many people in enclosed venues without protection,” so they could have been infected at any number of places, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Although Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus with a PCR test Friday, experts note that false-negative results are common in the first few days after infection. Test results over the next several days will yield more useful information.
It can take more than a week for the virus to reproduce enough to be detected, Wells said: “You are probably not detectable for 3, 5, 7, even 10 days after you’re exposed.”
In Minnesota, where Trump held an outdoor campaign rally in Duluth with hundreds of attendees Wednesday, health officials warned that a 14-day quarantine is necessary, regardless of test results.
“Anyone who was a direct contact of President Trump or known COVID-19 cases needs to quarantine and should get tested,” the Minnesota Department of Health said.
Ongoing lapses in test result reporting could hamper efforts to track and isolate sick people. As of Sept. 10, 21 states and the District of Columbia were not reporting all antigen test results, according to a KHN investigation, a lapse in reporting that officials say leaves them blind to disease spread. Since then, public health departments in Arizona, North Carolina and South Dakota all have announced plans to add antigen testing to their case reporting.
Requests for comment to the D.C. Department of Health were referred to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office, which did not respond. District health officials told KHN in early September that the White House does not report antigen test results to them – a potential violation of federal law under the CARES Act, which says any institution performing tests to diagnose COVID-19 must report all results to local or state public health departments.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said it’s not surprising that Trump tested positive, given that so many of his close associates – including his national security adviser and Secret Service officers – have also been infected by the virus.
“When you look at the number of social contacts and travel schedules, it’s not surprising,” Adalja said.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.