How is that relevant to a proper clinical trial? If you want to propose a different design, great. What is it?
Not my job to design a trial. It was known for decades that this particular drug was extraordinarily safe for humans. There were indications that it could have been helpful. Of course, having an actual treatment would have been extraordinarily unhelpful for the big pharma companies trying to push an experimental treatment on the public for literally billions of dollars. Lord knows we can’t have that. it might cut into your payments, if suddenly there weren’t billions of dollars to throw around at any shill that is willing to push people to take experimental drugs against a virus that wasn’t even particularly dangerous for the vast majority of the population.