The antiviral drug remdesivir had little or no effect in treating patients hospitalized with Covid-19, according to a study that has not yet been peer reviewed, but was coordinated by the World Health Organization and released on Thursday, casting doubt on one of the few promising treatments for the coronavirus. Remdesivir is the only specific drug…
Category: Drugs
Real Clear Politics reports “The Tragic Hydroxychloroquine Debate and Dr. Fauci’s Denial of Evidence”
As an epidemiologist trained to make causal inference, especially from observations, I feel strongly that there is an urgent need for an open and honest debate on the ability of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to save lives. I had not paid much attention to discussions related to the efficacy of pharmacological interventions in the treatment of Covid-19…
Rolling Stone reports “Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Profiteers”
How the race to develop treatments and a vaccine will create a historic windfall for the industry — and everyone else will pay the price On June 29th, 2020, while America remained transfixed by anti-police protests, the chairman and CEO of the pharmaceutical company Gilead issued a much-anticipated announcement. In a breezy open letter, Daniel O’Day…
Stat News reports “The U.S. government contributed research to a Gilead Remdesivir patent — but didn’t get credit”
Two documents dating back to 2015 shed further light on the role the federal government played in discovering remdesivir and its use in treating coronaviruses — work that has taken on new meaning as the Gilead Sciences (GILD) drug has gained global attention and an emergency use authorization from federal regulators to treat patients with…
Harvard University reports “Risky Drugs: Why The FDA Cannot Be Trusted”
A forthcoming article for the special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (JLME), edited by Marc Rodwin and supported by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, presents evidence that about 90 percent of all new drugs approved by the FDA over the past 30 years are little or no more effective for patients than existing drugs. All…
Washington Examiner reports “Hydroxychloroquine works in high-risk patients, and saying otherwise is dangerous”
It seems quite possible that the FDA, a third of whose funding comes from drug companies, is under intense pressure from those companies to be extremely conservative in its handling of hydroxychloroquine. If hydroxychloroquine is used widely and comes to be recognized as highly effective, the markets for expensive and patented COVID-19 medications, including intravenous drugs that…
Open letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci regarding the use of Hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19
Dear Dr. Fauci: You are largely unchallenged in terms of your medical opinions. You are the de facto “COVID-19 Czar.” This is unusual in the medical profession in which doctors’ opinions are challenged by other physicians in the form of exchanges between doctors at hospitals, medical conferences, as well as debate in medical journals. You…
AE Daily reports “U.K. Scientists Say Hydroxychloroquine May Still Have Promise, No Drug Has Been Politicized Like This”
British scientists have said hydroxychloroquine may still have promise as a preventive treatment for COVID-19 but the drug has become so politicized that studies investigating whether or not it is effective are being hampered. The goal is to investigate whether or not hydroxychloroquine and the related drug chloroquine are effective in preventing or reducing the…
The Hill reports “Why doctors and researchers need access to hydroxychloroquine”
On July 6, a team of doctors from Henry Ford Hospital, supported by physicians from Baylor University Medical Center, submitted an urgent request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reauthorize use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for early treatment of COVID-19. Since that day, more than 25,000 more Americans have died from the virus as…
Newsweek reports “The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It”
As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a…