DR. ROSHINI RAJ, CONTRIBUTING MEDICAL EDITOR, "HEALTH" MAGAZINE & ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, NYU: However, sometimes that immune response, the antibodies can go haywire and attack your own body. And in that case, you're not doing yourself any good. In fact, you can have an overwhelming reaction to that. That's why sometimes people end up in the ICU or even dying. So this concept of autoantibodies, those antibodies that attack your body. And in this study, it shows they were attacking some of the immune factors that usually help you fight off the virus. Since those are being attacked in lower levels, people that tended to have that autoantibody reaction did worse with the disease. They also looked at a subgroup of people who were very sick, who had a genetic mutation in the production of one of these immune factors. It's called gamma interferon. It's one of the tools that the body uses to fight off viral infections. And in this subgroup, that level was actually reduced with the mutation. And they found that it was much more likely to be a male person with a genetic mutation than a female, which may explain why we saw many more deaths and severe illness in men versus women.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Dr. Raj, thank you so much. You always make things so much clearer.</s>ROSHINI: Thank you.</s>KEILAR: Ahead, a young coronavirus survivor will join me on the long- term impact that she's been battling, which includes glaucoma. Plus, I'll speak live with a retired rear admiral who organized the letter with 500 national security experts endorsing Joe Biden. And I'm going to respond to the White House's baseless attacks on me, the wrong Brianna that they should be worried about.
Dr Roshini Raj Discusses "Misguided" Antibodies, Genetic Mutation May Be to Blame for Severe Cases