Posted on 04/18/2020 9:07:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
An experimental drug called remdesivir “significantly reduced” the CCP virus in monkeys, according to a study released on Friday.
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that emerged from mainland China last year, causes the disease COVID-19. Fears of the spread of the virus has forced the United States into a near-total lockdown, though some states this week announced plans to start reopening soon.
Remdesivir significantly reduced both clinical disease and damage to the lungs of rhesus macaques infected with the CCP virus, according to scientists of the National Institutes of Health.
The study was not peer reviewed and shouldn’t be considered clinical advice, the government agency stressed, “but are being shared to assist the public health response to COVID-19.”
“These data support early remdesivir treatment initiation in COVID-19 patients to prevent progression to severe pneumonia,” the researchers wrote. A researcher with Gilead Sciences, which produces remdesivir, collaborated on the study.
Researchers took two groups of the monkeys, giving one group remdesivir and the other group nothing. Both groups were infected with the virus. Twelve hours later, the treatment group received a dose of remdesivir intravenously before getting a booster dose every day for the next six days.
Just 12 hours after the initial treatment, scientists found the six treated animals in significantly better health than the untreated group. Only one of the six had difficulty breathing, while all six of the untreated monkeys struggled to breathe. That trend continued throughout the study.
Researchers also found the amount of virus found in the lungs was significantly lower in the treatment group versus the six that were not treated and that the virus caused less damage in the lungs in the treated animals.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
How did monkeys get the virus? They’re always under lockdown.
Doesn’t sound quite as good as hydroxychloroquine.
Besides, I don’t think the NIH has proven themselves to be trustworthy.
$100 for Hydroxy
$13K for Hospitalization
$60K if you get to the ventilator
How much for Rem?
Oh it’s a bargain at $5K per dose, saves on the wear & tear of the ventilators. /s
CCP virus is a new one. The Epoch Times has no chill, and I love it.
RE: How did monkeys get the virus? They’re always under lockdown.
The NIH lab deliberately infect them with the virus of course. That’s what all tests do to animals ( Shhh... don’t tell PETA ).
RE: CCP virus is a new one. The Epoch Times has no chill, and I love it.
The Epoch Times has used this term for over a month now to emphasize that the the virus originated from a CCP ran lab.
It had an anecdotal impact on monkeys.
Monkeys aren’t humans.
RE: How much for Rem?
I keep hearing the $1,000 per dose figure being thrown about but I don’t have any reliable source for that.
The Federal Government will definitely step in *IF* this drug is found to work well.
The Feds could for instance, reimburse Gilead for all the cost of research and testing in order to encourage them to make the drug available at a low price.
The Feds could also give Gilead huge tax incentives for sharing their formula with generic drug makers.
Not that much wear and tear, if you only give it to patients on the ventilators...
NOT <s>
“CCP virus is a new one. The Epoch Times has no chill, and I love it.”
You do realize that Epoch Times was founded by a group belonging to the religious sect of Falun Gong. That sect has been persecuted by the Chinese government so there is no love lost between the two.
So whenever you read an article from ET you can be guaranteed that it will be slanted against the Chinese government.
Not saying they’re wrong, only to let you know who the messenger is.
I’m curious if this drug would work against the flu.
All media is biased, one way or the other.
Rem hasn't been approved by the FDA for any disease yet, so it has no price yet.
“All media is biased, one way or the other.”
Absolutely true, and so are we all individually. And we all drift toward the media that reinforces our biases. It’s very worthwhile being cognizant that we are doing so as opposed to thinking that the other side is biased and our side is as pure as wind driven snow.
Which begs the question, where is the truth and the right and the wrong?
The proof is in the putting. At the end of the day the “right” is what works in the long run. But even that can be disputed. Who defines what’s working? I guess it comes down to each one of us individually.
AND, thank GOD they have connections inside Red China.
Because without those types of news media, it would take months to figure out WTH was going on inside that country.
They traced it down and showed proof of what happened at that LAB, how the CCP covered it up, how the CCP military funded the research, all of it.
remdesivir could very well be a red herring:
the NEJM article that Gilead had published was totally shredded by professional researchers; one researcher’s conclusion was that the data were “unintelligible” ...
also, it’s good to note that serious medical professionals refer to NEJM as the “Ladies Home Journal of Medicine”
basically, the NEJM article was nothing but a means to fluff Gilead’s sinking stock ....
here’s some of the shredding:
from a medical website:
New data on the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir (Gilead) suggest clinical improvement in 36 of 53 patients (68%) hospitalized for severe COVID-19, according to a new study published online April 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But experts are warning that these data come from compassionate use in a wide variety of patients, with no randomization and no control group.
“It is impossible to know the outcome for this relatively small group of patients had they not received remdesivir,” commented Stephen Griffin, PhD, associate professor at the University of Leeds School of Medicine, United Kingdom, who was not involved with the study.
“As the authors point out, a randomized clinical trial is necessary to determine the true effectiveness of this drug,” Griffin added in comments he provided to the Science Media Centre in London. Such trials are underway. The data from this paper are almost uninterpretable. Prof Stephen Evans, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
“The data from this paper are almost uninterpretable,” said Stephen Evans, MSc, FRCP, professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who provided comments to the Science Media Centre.
Evans notes that the authors describe multiple caveats that limit interpretation of the results, including the small sample size, the relatively short follow-up, missing data, no follow-up on eight patients, and lack of a randomized control group.
Meanwhile, Josh Farkas, MD, who writes the PulmCrit blog, details his criticisms in a piece entitled, “Eleven reasons the NEJM paper on remdesivir reveals nothing.” Beyond the issues the authors list, he points out several more, including cherry picking of patients. “Remdesivir was aggressively sought-after by thousands of patients with COVID-19,” he writes. “Of these patients, 61 ended up receiving the drug. Why did these patients receive medication, out of scores of patients applying to receive it?”
Also, there are no follow-up data for 8 of the 61 patients who received an initial dose of the drug, leaving 53 for the published analysis, continues Farkas, who is an assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington.
“What happened to these patients? Did they die from anaphylaxis? Did they get well, sign out against medical advice, and go party? This is unknown — but I’m worried that these patients actually didn’t fare so well,” Farkas writes.
Farkas, like Evans and Griffin, concludes that the data are largely unusable. “Until [a randomized controlled trial] is performed, further compassionate use of remdesivir probably isn’t justified,” he writes.
and more:
“Eleven reasons the NEJM paper on remdesivir reveals nothing”
https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pulmcrit-eleven-reasons-the-nejm-paper-on-remdesivir-reveals-nothing/
https://twitter.com/hashtag/PrimumNonNocere
commentary on NEJM:
https://twitter.com/NEJM/status/1248697013870493698
“I want to cry looking at this paper”
https://twitter.com/sgdambrauskas/status/1248731936681590785
here’s some comments about the NEJM article from doctors commenting about it on medscape:
“I question the double standards and intent - no controls, only 53 pts (63-8 excluded suspiciously) scattered over 3 CONTINENTS (so management variable to say the least) and 68% improvement in oxygen score (when 50+% expected to improve on their own) - this gets published in NEJM - gets promptly hailed by Gilead CEO and media. GLD stock had lost 10% over the month after initial hype, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next. All this while the academics are criticizing HCQ ad-nauseam because it showed 97% pts improved in a poorly controlled trial of 1061 pts conducted by one person.
We don’t know if it will be HCQ or Remdisivir or something else, but can we quit double standards and think of sick and dying patients first?
Why even talk about 53 pts when USA alone has half a million?
What is happening here? “
and another:
“The problem is that Gilead failed to include enough patients in the trial. Their methodology completely eludes me. This drug may very well be as good or better than Hydrochloroquine, as it went through all trials and approval in the past for Ebola, though it was not that effective for that virus.
I question if it is politics here, or just blinders-on overlooking it by the FDA, CDC, or Dr. Fauci, that they have shown but a fraction of the interest in Remdesivir than it did in HC.”
But as always consider the messenger, and that they may not be telling you the whole truth given their motives.
They presented the documents. I mean WTH?
Motives or not, if they present the actual documents, then they are liars?
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