Something rather unsettling happened last Wednesday, just as I getting ready to start posting this editorial series. I was emailed a link to a 9-miniute film trailer, posted on YouTube, for the film Plandemic. The trailer featured an interview with a controversial virus researcher named Judy Mikovits, who had worked with some now-famous research colleagues back in the early 1980s — Anthony Fauci, Frank Ruscetti, Robert Gallo and Nobel prize winning researcher Luc Montagnier — helping discover the virus behind the fast-spreading AIDS epidemic. The interview was itself unsettling — reflecting badly on Dr. Fauci and the pharmaceutical industry in general. I found it difficult to believe Ms. Mikovits’ story was entirely true, but I appreciated the opportunity to hear it.
What was even more unsettling, however, were the actions of YouTube itself. I had watched the movie trailer before dinner… and when I went back later that evening to review some of Ms. Mikovits’ statements and accusations, the video was disabled.
Certainly, the content of the video was controversial. But isn’t this a free country, where people are allowed to express their opinions without being censored by multinational corporations?
Isn’t it true, that democracy dies in darkness, as the Washington Post — and others — are fond of reminding us?
We’ll be discussing Ms. Mikovits’ accusations later in this editorial series. But for today, I’d like to continue discussing the relationship between money, power, and drugs, by sharing another important web posting that was also recently deleted:
A few years ago, scientists at California-based Gilead Sciences began testing a new anti-viral drug they called ‘remdesivir’, which they hoped would be effective in fighting the Ebola and Marburg virus epidemics in Africa. The drug proved to have little effectiveness against both viruses, and in the case of the Ebola clinical trials, “…Congolese health officials announced that [remdesivir] was significantly less effective than monoclonal antibody treatments.” See the Wikipedia website for more technical information.
But Gilead was still looking for a virus — any virus — against which remdesivir might be effective. Maybe… it could be used to treat… COVID-19? The coronavirus that has shut down economies all around the globe? A virus — SARS-CoV-2 — that was totally unknown when remdesivir was developed?
Let’s do some quick clinical trials, then. Some clinical trials administer the unproven medicine to a group of suffering patients, and compare the results to a second ‘control’ group that is given a placebo (such as a sugar pill) or else nothing at all. It appears that a COVID clinical trial done in China, using remdesivir, compared the test results to a control group that were given ‘standard of care.’ That is, no placebo at all. The results of the trial were posted to the World Health Organization (WHO) website.
237 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 underwent randomization (158 remdesivir; 79 control)… Remdesivir use was not associated with a difference in time to clinical improvement… mortality at 28 days… or in time to SARS-CoV-2 PCR [polymerase chain reaction]…In this study of hospitalized adult patients with severe COVID-19 that was terminated prematurely, remdesivir was not associated with clinical or virological benefits…
Remdesivir was stopped early in 12% of the patients because of “adverse effects.”
From StatNews.com:
The antiviral medicine remdesivir from Gilead Sciences failed to speed the improvement of patients with COVID-19 or prevent them from dying, according to results from a long-awaited clinical trial conducted in China…
A summary of the study results was inadvertently posted to the website of the World Health Organization and seen by STAT on Thursday, but then removed.
“A draft manuscript was provided by the authors to WHO and inadvertently posted on the website and taken down as soon as the mistake was noticed. The manuscript is now undergoing peer review and we are waiting for a final version before WHO comments on it,” said WHO spokesperson Daniela Bagozzi.
…After one month, it appeared 13.9% of the remdesivir patients had died compared to 12.8% of patients in the control group. The difference was not statistically significant.
As noted, the information about the China trial was removed from the WHO website. But alleged information about a different clinical trial — a trial sponsored by Gilead Sciences, in Chicago — was somehow leaked to the news media. The trial did not use any control group at all, but the leaked information suggested benefits from remdesivir. From the FierceBiotech.com article, “Did Gilead’s remdesivir flop a Chinese trial? Analysts beg to differ”:
These latest results come one week after leaked data from a Chicago hospital suggested remdesivir quickly reduced fever and respiratory symptoms in patients with severe COVID-19. That site is participating in a Gilead-sponsored phase 3 study that has no comparator arm [control group]…
The leaked information apparently caused a significant increase in Gilead’s stock market value, leading US Congressman Lloyd Doggett, chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, to call for an SEC investigation. From another FierceBiotech article:
Although the source of the leak is unclear, “providing information that’s designed to impact the stock market is not something that is permitted under federal securities law,” Doggett said.
Apparently, thousands of bottles of remdesivir are now being prepared for shipment to American hospitals, so that other doctors can experiment on sick patients. As of last week, Gilead had not yet revealed how much they will charge patients — or governments — for the drug treatment. According to documents linked on the Public Citizen website, Gilead’s development of remdesivir has benefited significantly from public funding. The website estimates that US taxpayers are contributing at least $70.5 million — through various government grants — to its development and testing.
But of course, remdesivir is not a vaccine, but rather an unproven drug now being given to people who’ve already contracted COVID-19. An effective vaccine would prevent people from getting COVID-19 in the first place.