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Remdesivir
Remdesivir is a drug developed and marketed by Gilead Sciences as an antiviral, though has never been approved by the FDA for that purpose.
Safety Profile
Evidence of Toxicity
Wgt Are Hospitals Spending So Much On Ineffective C-19 Treatments
Pierre Kory, MD, MPA
My RealClear Markets Op-Ed On How Remdesivir Is Based on Junk Science Billions have been spent on an ineffective, unsafe anti-viral given when viral replication has ceased occurring in the majority of patients. The U.S health system has no limits on corrupt absurdity.
Remdesivir claimed the top spot for hospital drug spending in 2021, with sales earning Gilead $4.2 billion in the first nine months alone. The problem is that, at best, the drug doesn’t work.
Despite some initial indication that Remdesivir might slightly reduce recovery time, the World Health Organization conducted a large-scale analysis that found it “had little or no effect on hospitalized patients with Covid-19, as indicated by overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay.” Unsurprisingly, the WHO recommended against using this drug to treat Covid-19 in November 2020 (and still does).
At worst, however, Remdesivir is harmful. A subsequent analysis of the agency’s safety database found it likely caused kidney failure, and when independent trials (those not sponsored by a pharmaceutical company) are analyzed alone, there is a clear statistical trend to harm. WHO also warns that the drug may be associated with an increased reporting of liver problems.
How is it possible that an ineffective and potentially dangerous drug that is scarcely used throughout the world received more money from U.S. hospitals than any other drug?
The answer is because our drug approval system is broken. It’s skewed towards expensive, patented, often marginally beneficial or unknowingly dangerous treatments produced by our pharmaceutical industry to the detriment of well-known, safe, cheap, generic drugs – and ultimately patients.
The NIH review of the fluvoxamine studies unsurprisingly takes great care to highlight potential study biases while dismissing the importance of the outcome benefits found, while ignoring the limited benefit and far more glaring flaws in the Remdesivir study. Fluvoxamine already has full FDA approval. It is safe and inexpensive (a pill costs about $1). Given what we are seeing with the patented and expensive drugs like Remdesivir (a course costs about $2,400), perhaps fluvoxamine’s small price tag is the problem.
As if this all weren’t dispiriting enough, we have undoubtedly spent so much on Remdesivir because hospitals have a major financial incentive to administer it. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services established a system that provides a 20% bonus to each hospital’s bill to encourage them to use Remdesivir and other EUA approved high cost, patented medications.3)
link dump
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/08/851632704/putting-a-price-on-covid-19-treatment-remdesivir https://www.keionline.org/wp-content/uploads/KEI-Briefing-Note-2020_1GS-5734-Remdesivir.pdf https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/A-1_2016_Form_990-PF_Signed.pdf https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/882095/000119312506045128/d10k.htm https://www.globaldata.com/gileads-suspension-of-covid-19-trials-in-china-should-serve-as-bellwether-for-studies-in-other-countries-says-globaldata/