Today an article on NOS about a new virus-inhibiting drug from Merck: molnupiravir. It's a drug that effectively fights Covid-19, in capsule form, and Fauci is excited (video at the bottom of this post). Medical treatment can therefore be stopped if the reaction leaves something to be desired, which is of course different with vaccinations. The NOS article is full of striking and sometimes peculiar things, which Guido Versteeg goes through below. The quotes from the NOS article are italicized.
"There is talk of a game changer. But is it? And why do we need it when we already have vaccines?"
- This seems obvious to me. Vaccines are usually given to healthy people. Every vaccine has a risk of side effects, so if you don't have to give healthy people anything, you don't have to take any chances with side effects. If you only give a medicine to sick people, the rest of the population does not have to take unnecessary medication. That has been my position from the beginning: focus on healing sick people, do not let healthy people take medication unnecessarily.
"A caveat is that, like all antivirals, it should be taken as early as possible. Antivirals will not be miracle cures."
- The big conundrum in this crisis is precisely that no treatments are allowed immediately at the start of the infection. Several doctors have already pointed this out: an infection must be fought as soon as possible, not only when the virus spreads throughout the body, then it can cause great damage. But all the options that have been proposed to apply early treatment have been banned or made suspect. So now Marc van Ranst admits that you have to treat early.
"Once a patient is admitted, the drug does not have a clearly measurable effect, according to previous research by Merck. In that case, other drugs can still be used in the hospital, such as remdesivir and antibodies developed in the lab, but that is in a later phase of the infection, which increases the chance of a bad outcome."
- Here, remdesivir is mentioned as a treatment. I recommend everyone to find out a bit about remdesivir and the effectiveness of this drug. And the side effects. I'll leave it at that.
"Antiviral drugs against influenza also showed encouraging results," says Van Ranst. "Provided they were administered on time. That is often not easy in practice." Eric Snijder also notes this: "Before you have made a diagnosis, it can still be a few days later. But you also don't want to give the drug before you know whether someone has corona."
- Remarkable: you do want to give the entire population a vaccine, even for the people who do not get corona or hardly get sick from it. But you don't want to give antiviral drugs before you know if someone has corona?
"As with bacteria that are controlled with antibiotics, there is a risk of resistance with antiviral drugs. A virus then mutates in such a way that the drug is no longer effective."
- There are several scientists who warn of this effect precisely by vaccinating the entire population in the middle of an epidemic. This also creates selection pressure and a virus mutates more quickly into a variant over which the vaccine no longer has a grip. Yet I don't hear this expert on this.
"If molnupiravir were to be marketed separately, it should mainly be used in the high-risk groups, say Snijder and Van Ranst: the elderly, people with underlying conditions and people for whom the vaccines do not work sufficiently. It also offers an extra treatment option for people who deliberately did not get vaccinated to prevent hospital admissions, but according to Van Ranst, this does create a 'moral dilemma': after all, a vaccine often prevents someone from becoming infected and is therefore also much more cost-effective."
- Especially in high-risk groups. Why? And why vaccines for everyone? And then Van Ranst tells a blatant lie: a vaccine does not prevent someone from becoming infected at all. And what exactly is good or evil about this choice (because that's what morality is all about): as if vaccinating the entire population is free! I do want to do the math on a beer mat: only give the sick people a pill if necessary, or vaccinate the entire population, including people who do not or hardly get sick. And that's probably every year.
Finally, the experts admit that the drug will be more effective against mutations than vaccines:
"Snijder doesn't think virus inhibitors are an alternative to a vaccine either, but we may soon need them on a larger scale: 'It may be that there will be a variant of SARS-CoV-2 that the vaccines no longer work against, or a completely new coronavirus.' Vaccines can be adapted fairly quickly to new variants and coronaviruses, but it can still take up to six months before they can be deployed: 'Then it's nice to have these kinds of resources to bridge that period.'
- The rule was always that vaccinations were only allowed if there was (temporarily) no good treatment available. That path seems to be abandoned: medicines are becoming stopgaps for when a new vaccine needs to be assembled. After all, everyone has to be jabbed... The rule now seems to be: "vaccination, unless there is (temporarily) no vaccine available". Virologica at its best.
“The part of the coronavirus that mainly mutates is the so-called spike protein, with which it attaches itself to human cells. The vaccines target that spike protein, but the virus inhibitors target other proteins. Snijder: "These proteins don't mutate as easily. The antivirals are therefore also likely to work against future corona variants and against the entire family of different coronaviruses."
- This indicates that vaccines only provide limited protection, and much less against mutants than a good antiviral drug. The fact that Merck charges $700 for the pills says more about Merck than anything else, for that matter.
The NOS article: https://nos.nl/artikel/2400419-virusremmer-tegen-corona-zeer-welkom-maar-geen-wondermiddel
Addition AT:
- Study in British Medical Journal: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2422
- The caveat that, like all antivirals, it should be taken as early as possible has been a major showstopper for HCQ and ivermectin. Apparently, this objection is only a 'side note' now that it concerns a new patented drug.
- The verdict "The part of the coronavirus that mainly mutates is the so-called spike protein" is not correct. Mutations go in all directions and only the contagious (not suppressed by the natural defenses or by the vaccine) find a new host. Vaccines help the immune system to respond to only one specific spike protein. If that protein mutates, a vaccine-trained immune system will no longer recognize it, regardless of other effects. A natural infection gives a broader recognition and therefore the same protection. The same may apply to a more general anti-viral drug, but that remains to be seen.
- Are the results really that much better than those of ivermectin, of which more is known about long-term side effects? In any case, this new drug (thanks, oh pharma) offers an elegant escape from the ivermectin-denying vaccination spiral and because it is a new, patented drug, there is more interest and therefore more clout behind it. Too bad about the price, let's hope it still normalizes.
- Note: Merck was also the producer of the cheap ivermectin, whose patent has expired. You can see how their ivermectin promotion went after that in This Timeline.]
