Tag Archives: molnupiravir

Beware Of The Side Effects

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Pfizer and Merck have rushed to produce drugs that will lessen the severity of the coronavirus in people who contract the disease. Unfortunately, as with all medications, these drugs have side effects–some of which are dangerous.

On Sunday Newsmax reported the following:

Experts warn that despite the first antiviral pills for COVID-19 promising protection for those at risk of severe disease, Pfizer’s or Merck’s new medications may not be safe for everyone, NBC News reported over the weekend.

One of the two drugs in Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral cocktail could cause severe or life-threatening interactions with commonly used medications, including statins, blood thinners and some antidepressants, and the FDA does not recommend Paxlovid for those with severe kidney or liver disease.

In addition, due to concerns about the potential side effects of Merck’s molnupiravir, the FDA has restricted its use to adults and only in cases in which other treatments are inaccessible or are not ”clinically appropriate.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article for further details.

Americans with high cholesterol are routinely put on statins; Americans with a-fib or other heart issues are routinely put on blood thinners. Hopefully doctors will take this into consideration before prescribing the antiviral pills. All medications have side effects–medicine is a risk vs. reward profession. I am concerned, however, about the too close relationship between the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies. Many doctors who have been seeing Covid patients for the past two years believe that there are effective, inexpensive ways of dealing with the disease that have been blocked by the FDA in favor of protocols that provide greater profits for the pharmaceutical industry.

Actually Following The Science

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On December 21st, The New York Post posted an article titled, “Biden needs to tell the FDA to stop blocking lifesaving COVID treatments.”

The article lists a number of treatments for COVID that have been tested scientifically and proven to be effective:

Fluvoxamine, a commonly available medication, reduced COVID deaths by 91 percent in a randomized controlled trial conducted with impeccable methodology and recently published in The Lancet. This study affirms another trial on the drug published last spring in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The drug is safe, has a plausible mechanism of action, costs $10 and has no contrary studies that might challenge the breathtaking results published. Yet I’ve never heard our public-health officials mention fluvoxamine.

…Merck’s lifesaving drug molnupiravir received an up-vote from the FDA’s external experts three weeks ago, yet the agency has not authorized the drug. Pfizer’s Paxlovid drug cut COVID deaths to zero (compared with 10 deaths in the control group), yet in the five weeks the FDA has been sitting on the application the agency has not even scheduled an advisory meeting to review it. Maybe functionaries don’t want to change their holiday plans.

The article also notes that the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID may actually contain some good news:

We also need straight talk when it comes to Omicron. Now 73 percent of new US COVID infections are from Omicron, a strain resulting in more mild illness. A University of Hong Kong study found that Omicron is one-tenth as infective in lung cells compared with the Delta variant. That explains why Omicron patients report far fewer cough and fever symptoms and far fewer people develop severe illness. Instead, the vast majority of Omicron-infected people get common-cold symptoms.

The fear headline is that Omicron partially evades antibody immunity. That’s true; so did Delta. But, also like Delta, Omicron does not escape existing T-cell immunity, according to a new Johns Hopkins study, which is consistent with mounting population data. Cases from the epicenter in Gauteng, South Africa, are plunging, down 44 percent Monday from the prior day. According to South African Health Minister Dr. Joe Phaahla, only 1.7 percent of COVID cases were hospitalized the second week of the Omicron-dominant wave, compared with 19 percent the same week of the Delta wave.

We now have laboratory data, epidemiological data and bedside observations to conclude that Omicron is a milder variant. We are witnessing how pandemics end — a virus mutates down and becomes endemic as population immunity increases.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel, but our government bureaucrats keep putting it out.