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Coronavirus: Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Joyner Leads COVID-19 Plasma Treatment Research
NNPA NEWSWIRE — We have people from about 40 universities and medical centers all over the country from about 20 states working on this and we are getting cooperation from the Food and Drug Administration. We are trying to get this online right away it’s already started in New York and Houston and we hope the pace is going to pick up throughout April.

By Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Service
At Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester is part of a group of experts that are pursuing a unique but time-tested treatment to help patients with COVID-19 fight off the virus. Convalescent plasma treatment has been used historically to treat infectious diseases before the discovery of vaccines.
Dr Michael Joyner (MJ) sat down with MSR for a brief interview
MSR: What is involved in convalescent plasma treatment?
MJ: It involves taking antibody-rich plasma from the blood of patients who have survived COVID-19, then infusing it into those who are ill to help their bodies fight off the disease. The approach is known as “convalescent plasma treatment.”
MSR: Why is it called convalescent plasma treatment?
MJ: It’s called convalescent because the word refers to when people are getting better.
MSR: You spent most of your career as a physiologist how did you get involved in this?
MJ: That’s true and I am also an anesthesiologist. What happened is my friend Dr. Arturo Casadevalle at John Hopkins wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal discussing the historical use of convalescent plasma. I reached out to Arturo and since we have a large network of collaborator we reached out to them. This was me repurposing my career for a few months in my lab to help attack this problem, to see if we could find some way to push back. I have thrown in with Arturo and want to help him move this forward. He is our visionary/spiritual leader.
MSR: Tell us who else is involved in this project?
MJ: We have people from about 40 universities and medical centers all over the country from about 20 states working on this and we are getting cooperation from the Food and Drug Administration. We are trying to get this online right away it’s already started in New York and Houston and we hope the pace is going to pick up throughout April.
MSR: The FDA has approved the process but with limitations. Explain the limits?
MJ: You have to get special permission. It’s one off at a time. We are currently working to get an expanded access protocol going so we can begin to collect more [plasma] all over the country and treat more people. It’s going to be a while until the supply is high. Infrastructure is being put in place to collect it at scale distribute it and get it to the people who can benefit from it. And then keep detailed records and make sure we do all the compliance and reporting, get people’s permission and study it while we are actually using it. We want to do it in a rigorous and ethical way.
MSR: When does this treatment date back to?
MJ: Before 1900 it was tried.
MSR: It appears some people have died from heart failure as a result of contracting the virus. How do you explain this?
MJ: One of things that can happen when you have an overwhelming infection is you have a condition called myocarditis meaning the heart becomes inflamed and the efficiency of the pumping action becomes worse. It’s unclear if COVID19 does anything unusual. It appears that when you are septic and when you have critical illness, when you have multi organ failure, typically your heart function goes down as well. It’s unclear if there is any kind of nasty stuff being excreted by this virus. It’s possible it targets the heart, but we don’t know that yet. My guess is it is more of the general phenomena. Time will tell we have to do the research.
MSR: How does COVID-19 attack the body?
MJ: Not clear exactly how covid attacks the body
I think we are 80 percent there. We have the general game plan but the details are still being worked out
MSR: How are you going to get started in Minnesota?
MJ: There are plans to collect it [plasma] and distribute it nationally. Most of the people we will begin to collect [plasma] from will be in the Rochester and southeastern Minnesota region.
MSR: What is plasma?
MJ: When you look at your blood it is red but red cells are about 40 percent the rest is protein containing fluid that if you separate it put it in a centerfuge and spin it around you will get this kind of yellowish material that’s plasma is the part of the blood of the blood that is not the red and white cells the non-cellular part of the blood.
MSR: What are its chances of success?
MJ: It’s too soon to tell. It depends on how sick the patient is. Our best shot is people who are sick but not terribly sick or in the ICU yet. And it may help people in the ICU.
MSR: Is it a panacea?
MJ: No what we are trying to do is bend some curves. We want to stop people deteriorating as they go form sick to the ICU and as they get in the ICU and do worse, we want them to stabilize and get better.
#NNPA BlackPress
Fighting to Keep Blackness
BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

By April Ryan
As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum
Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.
Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”
#NNPA BlackPress
Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

By Lauren Burke
In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.
On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.
All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.
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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.
The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.
“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.
The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”
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