COVID treatments: Still struggling for mass uptake

The problems with the insufficient distribution that the article talks about get even more complicated thanks to disinformation campaigns from anti-scientific groups that exaggerate the risks of the medication and promote useless alternatives like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, deceiving people from getting drugs that could save their lives, in some ways this reflects a lot of the problems that have plagued the vaccines, even when they have saved countless lives.

Simply stating what some heads of organisations, who are intricately linked with the pharma cartel due either to being funded by them directly or indirectly, does not necessarily represent the views of their members. All you're doing is appealing to authority while ignoring valuable dissent and information from doctors, nurses and medical scientists on the ground who deal with this disease on a daily basis, with real patients.

The recommendation was based on new trials showing Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospital admission by 85 percent...

They studied high risk symptomatic people that were unvaccinated. 1% of the Paxlovid side developed severe symptoms, while 7% of the placebo did. Considering this was done during Delta and that each treatment costs over $500 and that today most high risk people are vaccinated and omicron is much less likely to result in severe symptoms, we should seriously consider how much money has to be spent to prevent 1 person developing severe symptoms. It would be much more rational to provide cheap and effective repurposed drugs (yes, they are effective!) that have well established safety profiles.

while molnupiravir has proved significantly less effective.

That is putting it very kindly. Molnupiravir was shown by Merck to be less effective than placebo against Delta, and it is extremely toxic (and expensive).

Simply stating what some heads of organisations, who are intricately linked with the pharma cartel due either to being funded by them directly or indirectly, does not necessarily represent the views of their members.

It is terribly illogical to think all scientists from all the different institutions around the world are in some kind of conspiracy to hide drugs so they would not be used on them, their friends or family members just for money. Maybe some people that are only interested in economical profit would think this is possible, but for the rest of the population this is too obviously nonsense.

The reality is that the scientific and medical community are in consenus, drugs like HCQ and ivermectin are worse than useless for COVID, they are nocive and only increase the risk of the patients so they have been discarded from the treatments against the infection.

If there were valid dissent that would be with actual scientific evidence, but at this point there is no credible evidence left that this consensus is wrong, more simply, all the scientists and doctors of the world are not wrong or in a conspiracy just because you don't like their conclusions.

we should seriously consider how much money has to be spent to prevent 1 person developing severe symptoms. 

How much money do you consider too much to save one life? you only refer to the maximum amount of money for a treatment, in a deeply flawed insurance system that makes every drug overpriced, how about the part of the article where many other manufacturers have been given a green light to produce the drug much more cheaply?

That is putting it very kindly. Molnupiravir was shown by Merck to be less effective than placebo against Delta, and it is extremely toxic (and expensive).

Which is why it is losing completely market against much more effective drugs like Paxlovid, that is still very effective against serious complications and death from variants.

prionkingToday  10:51 am JST

Simply stating what some heads of organisations, who are intricately linked with the pharma cartel due either to being funded by them directly or indirectly, does not necessarily represent the views of their members. All you're doing is appealing to authority while ignoring valuable dissent and information from doctors, nurses and medical scientists on the ground who deal with this disease on a daily basis, with real patients.

Absolutely.

And this article is not even remotely about disinformation campaigns from anti-scientific groups. It is odd that such irrelevant remarks would be made in response to the theme of this article which is simply that barriers such as logistics, not anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories thrown out there by non-medical professionals, are the reason why many treatments are not being administered.

That is putting it very kindly. Molnupiravir was shown by Merck to be less effective than placebo against Delta, and it is extremely toxic (and expensive).

Which is why it is losing completely market against much more effective drugs like Paxlovid, that is still very effective against serious complications and death from variants.

And yet governments world wide agreed to purchase millions of doses after Merck's data showed it to be ineffective and toxic. If more was needed to prove that governments and regulatory agencies are captured... Same goes with Remdesivir.

we should seriously consider how much money has to be spent to prevent 1 person developing severe symptoms. 

How much money do you consider too much to save one life?

Money should be spent much more wisely. Why aren't they? Who is profiting from this? Not the general public....

Absolutely

Except for the part is makes absolutely no sense that the whole scientific and medical communities are in a conspiracy that importantly damages their (and their families) health.

And this article is not even remotely about disinformation campaigns from anti-scientific groups

The article is about problems that make the uptake of COVID treatments more difficult, this includes disinformation and attempts from anti-scientific groups to deceive people to reject those treatments. Do you have any argument against this?

not anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories thrown out there by non-medical professionals, are the reason why many treatments are not being administered.

What non-medical professionals are you talking about? is this just another attempt to guess what other people are or do and try to use is as some kind of argument? because that would make it by definition baseless, and against the rules of the site.

The article is about problems that make the uptake of COVID treatments more difficult, this includes disinformation and attempts from anti-scientific groups to deceive people to reject those treatments. Do you have any argument against this?

Several treatments are now available to fight COVID-19 but **tight timelines, unequal access and weakening effectiveness against new variants have limited their ability to blunt the worst of the pandemic.**

What non-medical professionals are you talking about? is this just another attempt to guess what other people are or do and try to use is as some kind of argument? because that would make it by definition baseless, and against the rules of the site.

Not a guess when someone claims to be something. boo hooo.

And yet governments world wide agreed to purchase millions of doses after Merck's data showed it to be ineffective and toxic. If more was needed to prove that governments and regulatory agencies are captured... Same goes with Remdesivir.

When there is nothing better something with very limited efficacy is bound to be in demand, this changes the moment something much more effective appears and it will change again in the future if better and cheaper drugs become available.

Money should be spent much more wisely. Why aren't they? Who is profiting from this? Not the general public....

If there is no option that can bring the same benefit (as described in the article) then there will be no other way to spend that money, specially when according to the article it is not being spent that much on the first place. Vaccines are a very good example of something much cheaper that offers an important reduction of risk, but there is nothing that guarantees 100% protection from complications and deaths because of COVID, having both vaccines and effective drugs allows for more people to be protected, specially when more and more long lasting problems have been identified related to COVID, like the important intellectual ageing some people experience in the long term after being hospitalized.

Several treatments are now available to fight COVID-19 but ***tight timelines, unequal access and weakening effectiveness against new varian*ts have limited their ability to blunt the worst of the pandemic.**

To which we can add disinformation and active anti-scientific campaings to deceive people into rejecting those treatments. Which is my point.

Not a guess when someone claims to be something. boo hooo.

Nobody here has claimed to be anything, easily proved as you keep making that claim only to become silent when asked to prove it with a reference.

As was the case for COVID vaccinations, wealthy countries have had far greater access to treatments than poorer nations.

Hopefully the WHO doesn't come out and manufacture a strategy to try and make Western nations give up their treatments to poorer nations like they did with HPV vaccines.

This is a war against a disease, and in a war the stronger combatant wins.

Hopefully the WHO doesn't come out and manufacture a strategy to try and make Western nations give up their treatments to poorer nations like they did with HPV vaccines.

Because saving more lives with a better distribution that avoid wasted doses is so bad? Arguing against preventing unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations is bad enough, but with COVID is specially invalid, because the whole world benefits from having as much people protected from complicated COVID, since this is part of the reasons why a new variant could appear. Rich countries act against their best interests by letting outbreaks and hospitalizations run wild anywhere in the world.

And here I was, thinking that now that news about vaccines are rare the resident antivaxxers would leave the site alone only to come and find the regulars now attacking also drugs against COVID. And as usual the personal attacks and open disinformation is rampant. Why is it so bad that people can be saved from COVID? you don't want to use something? then refuse it when you go to the hospital fighting for every breath, just let the rest of the people get better and survive thanks to advances of science.

Rich countries act against their best interests by letting outbreaks and hospitalizations run wild anywhere in the world.

Show proof.

Otherwise, another baseless wild claim.

Rich countries act against their best interests by letting outbreaks and hospitalizations run wild anywhere in the world.

Rich countries act against their best interests by blocking the use of cheap\safe drugs that work.

Show proof.

Otherwise, another baseless wild claim.

You mean like your claim that people claimed to be anything? Many institutions that deal with the pandemic have expressed the need to stop infections everywhere to reduce the risk of variants appearing, for example

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/a-new-strain-of-coronavirus-what-you-should-know

As long as the coronavirus spreads through the population, mutations will continue to happen, and the delta and omicron variant families continue to evolve.

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/patient-zero-understanding-how-new-coronavirus-variants-emerge

“Because only a few SARS-CoV-2 mutations were in circulation during most of 2020, it is likely that the three major variants are the result of selective pressures and adaptation of the virus during prolonged individual infections and subsequent transmission,” 

Since effective treatment can stop prolonged individual infections this obviously means variants also become less likely to appear.

Rich countries act against their best interests by blocking the use of cheap\safe drugs that work

That is the thing, this is not happening, the drugs that work are being used without problems (like dexamethasone) those that don't (like HCQ and ivermectin) are discarded, there is no point in using things that do not make the patients recover better and instead just add extra risks for them because of their well known toxicities.

You mean like your claim that people claimed to be anything? Many institutions that deal with the pandemic have expressed the need to stop infections everywhere to reduce the risk of variants appearing, for example

Proves nothing about rich countries letting outbreaks run wild in the world.

That is the thing, this is not happening, the drugs that work are being used without problems (like dexamethasone) those that don't (like HCQ and ivermectin) are discarded,

Off topic and irrelevant to the article.

Some people want to push their own agenda for who knows what reason.

Proves nothing about rich countries letting outbreaks run wild in the world.

The argument is that rich countries benefit from not doing that, the one that says the rich countries are letting outbreaks run wild is the article you are commenting in, apparently without reading it.

As was the case for COVID vaccinations, wealthy countries have had far greater access to treatments than poorer nations.

However last week the WHO called on Pfizer to go further, saying it was "extremely concerned" that for treatments low- and middle-income countries would again be "pushed to the end of the queue".

Off topic and irrelevant to the article.

Tell that to the person that made the false claim, I am just refuting that.

Some people want to push their own agenda for who knows what reason.

Mostly people that want to ignore scientific arguments when brought here as references.

@virusrex,

You want it and I don't. Case closed. Science tells me I have 99.2% chance of survival without shots. The rulers ran with a story and everyone fell for it. Strange how they just pushed injecting chemicals rather than encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

You want it and I don't. Case closed.

No, not really, the treatment works even if you don't want it, so there is value in promoting it so when a medical professional offers it the patients can easily accept it as the best standard of care.

You are free to do as you like, but misrepresenting the opinion of experts and scientists that demonstrate the vaccines and treatment work as coming from "rulers" is not valid, refute the scientific evidence or accept this is what has been proved objectively.

People working in public health have been encouraging a healthy lifestyle for decades before COVID appeared, and none stopped during the pandemic but the opposite. The thing is that everything (preventive measures, vaccines, treatments and changes of lifestyle) can be used without problems all together. It makes no sense to think you can only do one if you reject others.

Vitamin D, zinc and quercetin have worked fine for me. I don't understand why so many people don't take them when they are so cheap

Assuming people that are hospitalized or die from COVID are deficient is not valid, people can be young, healthy and be free of deficiencies (therefore not getting any benefit from supplements) and still get seriously sick or die.

It is also invalid to think you can only choose one of the options to lower your risk, people can work on their dietary deficiencies and still be in high risk from COVID, so a treatment that helps preventing complications and deaths is still a very welcome addition to the treatment they can get.