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Pfizer Inc said on Monday it has started a large study testing its investigational oral antiviral drug for the prevention of COVID-19 infection among those who have been exposed to the virus. The drugmaker and its rivals, including U.S.-based Merck & Co Inc and Swiss pharmaceutical Roche Holding AG , have been racing to develop an easy-to-administer antiviral pill for COVID-19. The mid-to-late-stage study will test Pfizer's drug, PF-07321332, in up to 2,660 healthy adult participants aged 18 and older who live in the same household as an individual with a confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 infection. In the trial, PF-07321332, designed...

In Ohio, the debate over ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 came to a head Aug. 30, when a Butler County judge issued a temporary, 14-day court order requiring UC Health West Chester Hospital to administer the drug to Jeffrey Smith, a 51-year-old Hamilton man who’d contracted COVID-19 in early July.As reported in the New York Post, Smith was admitted to the hospital a week later and “treated with the hospital’s COVID-19 protocol, which included plasma, steroids and doses of remdesivir.”* (See information regarding remdesivir at the end of this piece.)While hospitalized, notes the article, Smith’s “condition began to decline”...

Drugmaker Merck & Co Inc said on Monday it sees potential U.S. emergency use authorization for its experimental COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment, Molnupiravir, before year-end. "I would just say that our program is enrolling well, and we expect to be able to see clinical data in the back half of the year," Merck's Chief Executive Officer Robert Davis said at Morgan Stanley's Annual Global Healthcare Conference. Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics are conducting a late-stage trial of molnupiravir in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients to see if it reduces the risk of hospitalization or death. Merck in June said it expected to...

Latest news reports of a cluster of ivermectin overdoses in Oklahoma were debunked by the hospital. Not one such case. The doctor who fabricated the story hadn’t work there in two months.On February 4, 2021, Merck, which is readying release of its new COVID-19 treatment drug, molnupiravir, issued a press release about that new drug’s competition, ivermectin.1 Merck itself had developed ivermectin, now off-patent, for human use, securing FDA approval in 1987, and distributed most of its 3.7 billion doses safely used worldwide since.2-4 It was thus curious that Merck’s press release about use of ivermectin for COVID expressed “a...

KENILWORTH, N.J., Feb. 4, 2021 – Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today affirmed its position regarding use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety. It is important to note that, to-date, our analysis has identified:No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and; A concerning lack of safety...

…The person went to hospital seeking treatment for diarrhoea and vomiting side-effects, after taking the drug, which is usually used to treat parasites. The person had ordered this and other unproven COVID "cures" online. While the patient did not die, health authorities are concerned at the number of people taking ivermectin, and warn against it for anyone else who may have COVID symptoms or has been diagnosed with the virus. So far, there is no clinical evidence it works to treat or prevent COVID-19. And there is widespread consensus people should not take ivermectin at home for COVID-19. What does...

The developer of ivermectin is performing late-stage trials on a drug that could actually prevent COVID-19. Merck & Co partnered with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics to develop molnupiravir. Enrollment for late-stage trials for their drug have already started.... The drug, which can be taken via a pill, is now entering late stage trials in the United States as Merck plans to eventually seek FDA approval. Over 1,300 volunteers aged 18 or older will be recruited for the study and live in a house with someone who has a symptomatic case of the COVID-19. Merck also plans to use the drug in some...

Some 50% of the patients needed have been recruited to complete a Phase III trial of an American-developed drug that “might be a game changer” in the battle against COVID-19, says Hadassah University Medical Center’s Prof. Yosef Caraco. Caraco told The Jerusalem Post that his team recently completed its part of a successful Phase II trial of the orally available antiviral drug candidate Molnupiravir, developed by Merck Pharmaceuticals (legally known internationally as MSD), a drug meant to slow the progression of coronavirus from mild to severe disease. The professor presented the data from the study at the European Congress of...

Ivermectin, a drug used to fight parasites in third-world countries, could help reduce the length of infection for people who contract coronavirus for less than a $1 a day, according to recent research by Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba, conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial from May 15, 2020, through the end of January 2021 to evaluate the effectiveness of ivermectin in reducing viral shedding among nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. Ivermectin has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration...

Oh look. We’re going to FINALLY get an outpatient treatment for COVID19!Its only $700 per course!We just have to wait a little bit longer. And – what are those side effects again? Any data on that?Well don’t you worry your pretty little head about such things. NIH, WHO, and CDC have your back.And since MOLNUPIRAVIR will be your only option for outpatient treatment in “The West”, you really won’t have a choice.https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210609005142/en/Merck-Announces-Supply-Agreement-with-U.S.-Government-for-Molnupiravir-an-Investigational-Oral-Antiviral-Candidate-for-Treatment-of-Mild-to-Moderate-COVID-19KENILWORTH, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced it has entered into a procurement agreement with the United States government for...

The CDC is horribly compromised, according to its own description of how it functions with private funds collected by the CDC Foundation.CDC is a Private Organization - Not Government! [Donors include Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, three separate PFizer foundations, Merck, Bloomberg, George Soros' Open Society Foundation, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Sanofi, Merck etc.]Post #1 of that thread lists the long list of donors to the CDC Foundation.It claims it's restrained from violations of integrity by charter. With utterly lawless, remorseless actions, the CDC steadily erodes and violates our Constitutional Rights and we're to believe they're going to daintily adhere to a...

Merck & Co Inc on Thursday said it plans a large study of what could become the first pill to target the coronavirus in people at risk of severe COVID-19, but will no longer pursue use of the experimental antiviral drug in hospitalized patients. The company said it would study the drug molnupiravir in a Phase 3 trial among COVID-19 patients out of hospitals who have at least one risk factor for poor outcomes, such as advanced age, obesity or diabetes. Trial participants can have had symptoms for no more than five days, shortened from seven days in a prior...

The fact is more drugs are needed to fight a pandemic that has infected over 120 million people and killed 2.7 million worldwide. Vaccine pills are on the way * Of the more than 7 billion people on Earth, only about 1.2% of the world’s population is now fully vaccinated * One of the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine pills will soon go through its first clinical trial * Merck's Molnupiravir doesn’t stop the virus from replicating, though. Instead, the drug introduces errors into the virus’s RNA For those cringing at the thought of getting jabbed with a COVID-19 vaccine out...

I am deeply offended that big corporations are trying to bully Georgia into repealing a perfectly reasonable voting integrity law. President Biden lied about the law so egregiously that even the Bezos propaganda outlet, The Washington Post, awarded him 4 Pinocchios. But that didn’t stop some of America’s most prominent corporations from trying to bully Georgia into repealing the law, one which protects legitimate votes from being cancelled out by fraudulent votes.Now, former President Trump is calling for boycotts of the corporations that are acting as political overlords:"For years the Radical Left Democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Some doctors are calling an experimental drug a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19. Pharmaceutical company Merck recently released, along with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, early trial results for Molnupiravir. The antiviral therapy would be a first of its kind capsule, taken twice a day for 5 days, to limit the effects of COVID-19. Central Ohio family physician Dr. Anup Kanodia explained Molnupiravir works for COVID-19 the way Tamiflu works for the flu. Both drugs stop a virus from reproducing. “If you catch it early on, it’s easier to fight off. Same thing with this,” he said. “So...

A new experimental drug is being tested and shows promise of eliminating COVID-19 just by taking a pill.The pill, Molnupiravir, which is being developed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck (MRK), was found to reduce the virus in individuals after five days of treatment in a mid-stage study, the companies announced in a release on March 6.While more studies of Molnupiravir are underway, the companies say the pill could provide a viable way to treat those that have symptoms of COVID-19 and be the first oral antiviral drug to combat the virus.Dr. Marc Siegel, a medical contributor for Fox News, told...

President Biden will announce Tuesday that pharmaceutical giant Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine... according to senior administration officials... Under the arrangement, Merck will dedicate two facilities in the United States to Johnson & Johnson’s shots. One will provide “fill-finish” services, the last stage of the production process during which the vaccine substance is placed in vials and packaged for distribution. The other will make the vaccine, and has the potential to vastly increase supply, perhaps even doubling what Johnson & Johnson could make on its own, the officials said... It could easily take two months...

Merck & Co. will help produce Johnson & Johnson ’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, President Biden plans to announce on Tuesday, as the administration pushes to get the shot to the American public at a faster pace. The president is expected to make the announcement while giving an update on the pandemic, administration officials said. The assistance from Merck, a competitor to Johnson & Johnson, will help speed up production after the one-shot vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday. J&J declined to comment. In a statement on Tuesday, a Merck spokesman said the company “remains steadfast...

The FLCCC Alliance wishes to respond to Merck’s public statements on February 4th, claiming a lack of sufficient evidence for ivermectin’s efficacy in COVID-19.* Merck’s assessments of ivermectin’s efficacy in COVID-19 are in striking contrast with the findings reported by multiple expert group’s systematic reviews from across the globe, including metaanalyses of the updated scientific literature: a. The Front-Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance[1] b. UNITAID/W.H.O Expert Consultant, Dr. Andrew Hill[2] c. The Evidence Based Medicine Consultancy[3] d. The National Institutes of Health Treatment Guidelines Panel[4] e. Kalfas et al, University of Melbourne[5] f. Padhy et al, All India Institute of...

KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced that the company is discontinuing development of its SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccine candidates, V590 and V591, and plans to focus its SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 research strategy and production capabilities on advancing two therapeutic candidates, MK-4482 and MK-7110. This decision follows Merck’s review of findings from Phase 1 clinical studies for the vaccines. In these studies, both V590 and V591 were generally well tolerated, but the immune responses were inferior to those seen following natural infection and those reported for other SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines. Merck continues to advance clinical...