Free Republic

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Wednesday suggested that standard mouthwash could treat COVID-19, and criticized federal agencies for telling people to "do nothing." "Standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus," Johnson said, according to The Washington Post. "If you get it, you may reduce viral replication. Why not try all these things?" "It just boggles my mind that the NIH continues to tell people to do nothing," he added of the National Institutes of Health, in a recording posted online by Heartland Signal. The mouthwash strategy has been refuted by both health experts and mouthwash brands themselves....

Merck’s antiviral pill for COVID-19, molnupiravir, appears to be far less effective than early results from the clinical trial first suggested.According to an analysis by scientists at the FDA, the experimental pill cut the risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 by about 30%, compared to a placebo, and the pill showed no benefit for people with antibodies against COVID-19 from prior infection.The updated analysis showed 48 hospitalizations or deaths among study participants who were randomly assigned to take the antiviral drug, compared to 68 among those who took a placebo.Those results come from the full set of 1,433 patients...