Merck’s Game Changing Antiviral for COVID
Effective and safe??? HIV antiretroviral drugs were thought to be safe as well based on similar studies like the one discussed here by Dr. Campbell. However, concurrent with the use of these drugs in HIV patients, we saw the emergence of HIV associated dementia (HAD) with neuropathological features similar to Alzheimer’s disease, such as beta amyloid deposits in the brain. The conventional explanation has been that because these drugs have poor penetration to the brain, the HIV would increase replication in the brain and that virus was the primary cause of HAD.
However, it was discovered (~2006) that these HIV antiretroviral drugs increase beta amyloid production in the same human cell based models used in Alzheimer’s research. I know this because I coauthored the first research paper reporting these effects of HIV antiretroviral drugs. Unfortunately, NIH was not enthusiastic about funding in further investigation into the possibility that these drugs were causing the dementia as opposed to HIV.
I mention this to raise the possibility that these new oral antivirals being rolled out by Big Pharma for COVID likely have off target toxic effects that are not readily apparent in these short term studies. After all, many of these drugs like remdesivir were originally developed for other viruses (eg Ebola) and failed. Thus, it is unlikely that any of these “new” drugs were specifically developed for COVID.
Although the same can be said of HCQ, ivermectin, and quercetin in terms of their reported antiviral properties against COVID, a major difference is these ladder therapeutic agents have far more data in far larger sample sizes demonstrating safety and efficacy clinically than these newer drugs being developed by Big Pharma.
The only thing really “game changing” about the new Merck drug is that the crony capitalism that favors billion dollar block buster profits over saving human life is now the huge elephant in the room under a spot light that everyone can see. The real challenge now for the future of Big Pharma is figuring out how to make this huge elephant disappear. Not likely IMO 😎