Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo accused President Joe Biden's administration of deliberately causing a shortage of monoclonal antibodies among Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) patients in Florida.

In a letter addressed to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, Ladapo blamed the former for making an "artificial shortage" of potential COVID treatments by allowing a "dramatic reduction in the number of monoclonal antibodies to be allocated to the State of Florida."

The HHS and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have halted the distribution of Regeneron and Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibodies, which have proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19.

The federal government is now only distributing GlaxoSmithKline's Sotrovimab monoclonal antibody treatment. The agencies claimed that Glaxosmithkline's monoclonal antibody treatment is more effective against the cold-like omicron variant compared to the Regeneron and Eli Lilly's products.

Ladapo noted that the federal government should not "limit our state's access to any available treatment for COVID-19" regardless of its effectiveness against particular variants.

"Florida can expand treatment options for patients by distributing therapeutics to providers working in areas with a low prevalence of omicron or clinics capable of variant screening," Ladapo wrote.

Federal government blocks monoclonal antibody treatments

Ladapo said that the federal government has not simply blocked the distribution of certain monoclonal antibody treatments, but has been "actively preventing the effective distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments in the United States."