Reporters: ask Dr. Conley about Trumps IgM titers!!!

[mainer]

Conley is crowing that Trump has detectable IgG levels, but he also received IgG by infusion. If he's actually mounting his own immune response, then he should have detectable IgM levels in his blood. But there's no mention of IgM in Conley's press release.

(When the body mounts an immune response to a virus, first the IgM levels rise, and later IgG rises.)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-0474-z

[Ms. Toad]

1. I haven't done enough research to see the interaction -

BUT - the MAB infusion he received is supposed to work better if given before his body mounts his own response. Whether it increases/decreases/doesn't impact his own bodie's respons - I don't know!

[andym]

2. He should have high IgG titers

because he received 8g of recombinant Ab from Regeneron. Given 5L of blood he got a 1.6 mg/ml boost (normal IgG is 8 mg/ml to 18 mg/ml IgG. IgG has a long half-life and most of what he received a few days ago should still be there. So between a 20% and 9% boost just from that treatment.

[scipan]

7. He got 5l of blood?

I hadn't heard that.

[andym]

8. No, 5L of blood is normal volune of human blood

To calculate the concentration divide the amount infected by the volume

[scipan]

9. Oh I see what you're saying

[hlthe2b]

3. I honestly think Dr. Conley is exceedingly ignorant about this--shockingly so. I'm nor sure it was

a ham-fisted attempt to bamboozle. I think his scope of understanding is lacking in the details needed here.

[Jim__]

4. Do you know how dexamethasone plays into the picture?

I know it's a steroid and an immunosuppressant. Do you know why they give that to him? I thought it might be for the immunosuppressant function. I had read that a lot of the damage from COVID-19 was caused by the immune system's response (if the first response failed, it launched a second response and that could cause damage).

I'm just curious.

[mainer]

5. dexamethasone is given to suppress the cytokine storm

and that usually happens later in the disease course, as a hyperimmune response. They gave Dexamethasone early in his illness, which made no sense to me (and still makes no sense to me.)

Dex. may well suppress his native IgM/IgG response, and the IgG they're now detecting could simply be from the Regeneron infusion. That's why the only way to really know if Trump is mounting his own immune response is to detect his IgM levels. If they are undetectable, then we know the IgG levels are artificially introduced.

[Jim__]

6. Thanks.