Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
I think it's great Merck came up with a drug showing real promise, but do worry this will further encourage folks to not get vaccined.
You're not the only one who worries about this. I really can't predict how that new drug will be accepted by the unvaccinated.

It should be easy to take – one course is 10 pills – twice daily for 5 days. The only problem I see is that it's effective if a person takes it within the first 5 days after testing positive for Covid-19. It apparently was tested in hospitalized people, with more advanced Covid-19, and it wasn't effective. So unvaccinated people must be tested more often if they expect to benefit from molnupiravir.
What I can't understand is why the these folks mistrust the drug companies and medical community when it comes to vaccines, but trust the same companies and communities when it comes to what I imagine will be a much more expensive treatment with likely side effects.
From what little I know about molnupiravir, it seems like it should be easy to manufacture, and might be cheap. I don't know anything about it's side effects, but safety data from the molnupiravir clinical trials will be on the table when the FDA looks at it. Merck did announce plans to seek an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA, so that will be soon.

Merck also plans to submit marketing applications to other drug regulators around the world. The company also announced plans to license the drug to generic manufacturers, to accelerate its availability. In addition to the USA, various other countries have reported interest in negotiating with Merck to procure stocks of molnupiravir pills, including the UK, South Korea, and Malaysia. So, I don't think anyone could reasonably accuse Merck of trying to profiteer from molnupiravir.

We'll have to wait & see what the unreasonable have to say.
 
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mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
I think it's great Merck came up with a drug showing real promise, but do worry this will further encourage folks to not get vaccined. What I can't understand is why the these folks mistrust the drug companies and medical community when it comes to vaccines, but trust the same companies and communities when it comes to what I imagine will be a much more expensive treatment with likely side effects.
I would think most of those against this vaccine had other vaccines in their lifetime.
A political statement.
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
And they believe that after you've had a certain quantity of vaccines, you die!
Is that their latest claims? How many vaccinations? Maybe I am already dead? :)

Come to think of it things do looks very strange out there. :D
 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
What I can't understand is why the these folks mistrust the drug companies and medical community when it comes to vaccines, but trust the same companies and communities when it comes to what I imagine will be a much more expensive treatment with likely side effects.
On a somewhat related note, my initial impression is the the entity that owns rights in Ivermectin would make *ss loads of money if it were proven to be effective against COVID (I'd have to check the status of the IP rights, this is just an initial impression). The faith in ivermectin vs other drugs and vaccines is puzzling.

As far as I can tell, the purveyors of conspiracies typically spew many contradictory conspiracies, apparently on the theory that they only need a person to believe one of the alternative conspiracies in order to succeed in diverting people from the truth. There does not need to be one logically consistent alternative reality, any mishmash of false beliefs is sufficient. A side effect of the shotgun approach to conspiracy theories seems to be contradictory beliefs by the consumers of conspiracy information.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
Is that their latest claims? How many vaccinations? Maybe I am already dead? :)

Come to think of it things do looks very strange out there. :D
As the saying goes, it takes all sorts of people to make a world. o_O
 
D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
Natural immunity provides better long-term protection, but again herd immunity as a starting point was concerning because of the pressure it puts on the hospital system. That was the way I understood it from the beginning. Herd immunity might end up being the way out eventually but what were they suppose to do? Let more people die in the beginning??? Sorry gramps, you gotta take it on the chin for the team. So you have this very nice gentlemen here explaining the lack of statistics from the CDC, but I'm guessing they don't release it because even though yeah it looks crooked really I'm not sure there was an alternative. I also have to wonder about the "legal" responsibility from our gov't workers that regular civilians do not have to face.

 
D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
I'm sorry but do realize my post could be conspiracy too. It's just the way I understand it is even though for those healthy you may have a better long-term prevention with having gotten covid, you also are at higher risk of getting more severe symptoms from covid. Therefore the best advice is still prevention and getting the vaccination. It's just I think with the news media people like the CDC are in an uphill battle.
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
On a somewhat related note, my initial impression is the the entity that owns rights in Ivermectin would make *ss loads of money if it were proven to be effective against COVID (I'd have to check the status of the IP rights, this is just an initial impression). The faith in ivermectin vs other drugs and vaccines is puzzling.

As far as I can tell, the purveyors of conspiracies typically spew many contradictory conspiracies, apparently on the theory that they only need a person to believe one of the alternative conspiracies in order to succeed in diverting people from the truth. There does not need to be one logically consistent alternative reality, any mishmash of false beliefs is sufficient. A side effect of the shotgun approach to conspiracy theories seems to be contradictory beliefs by the consumers of conspiracy information.
Ivermectin has been around a long time, and is now available as a generic drug. I doubt if it has any patent protection remaining in effect.
Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981;[12][13] William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its discovery and applications.[14] The medication is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines,[15] and is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an antiparasitic agent.[16] In 2018, ivermectin was the 420th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than one hundred thousand prescriptions.[17] It is available as a generic medicine.[18][19]
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Natural immunity provides better long-term protection, but again herd immunity as a starting point was concerning because of the pressure it puts on the hospital system. That was the way I understood it from the beginning. Herd immunity might end up being the way out eventually but what were they suppose to do? Let more people die in the beginning??? Sorry gramps, you gotta take it on the chin for the team. So you have this very nice gentlemen here explaining the lack of statistics from the CDC, but I'm guessing they don't release it because even though yeah it looks crooked really I'm not sure there was an alternative. I also have to wonder about the "legal" responsibility from our gov't workers that regular civilians do not have to face.
I watched the video you linked. Most of what that guy had to say was straight forward, and I agree with him.

I liked his point that looking only at circulating antibody levels as a measure of immunity is misleading because it ignores the important roles of memory B cells and T cells. So far, there is good scientific evidence that B & T cell immunity are strong after vaccination, and that they last as long as from virus infection. However, those results are from small numbers of people. Because those studies are much more difficult to do on a large scale, we lack very large studies that would confirm this kind of cellular immunity exists on a population-wide basis.

However, I strongly disagree with his conclusions about that Israeli study. He said it shows that the Pfizer vaccine’s immunity wanes, not lasting as long as the immunity acquired by people who were previously infected. That conclusion is invalid because the study's authors ignored risk prediction based on statistical methods. If the Israeli data was done as a properly designed clinical trial, it might suggest that. But it wasn’t a clinical trial at all.

I’ve discussed all this previously in response to some posts from Auditor55. See my posts #6406 and #6421. Also see NINaudio’s post #6418.

Think of it this way. The Israeli study involved about 32,000 people. The raw numbers of people who became infected after previous infection or after vaccination were very small. Was that a fluke? Or, was it a good prediction for an entire population? A statistician would say this differently, asking if the Israeli study was a result of sampling error? If ten more populations were studied, each with another 32,000 people, would those results be repeated? A well-designed clinical trial can answer this question, but the Israeli study only looked at people already in their database. They ignored the question of whether their results could accurately predict risk for a much larger population.

The large clinical trials that were done last year to test the efficacy of the vaccines looked at a large group of people. That group was carefully selected to be as uniform as possible while still reflecting genders, age groups, and prior medical histories. That group was also deliberately made large enough to be reasonably sure that the numbers of people getting infected after vaccination or dummy injection would be large enough to allow meaningful conclusions. Then each member of that group was then randomly given the vaccine or a dummy injection.

The Israeli study looked at everyone in their database, without considering any of the above things I mentioned. When care is made about selecting a large enough patient population for a clinical trial, and that group was randomly given the vaccine or a dummy shot, it allows statistical analysis that can predict risks to a much larger population. The Israeli study ignored that. That study was very large, but was it large enough to accurately predict future risks? No. You must not think of that Israeli study as the same as a clinical trial. And you cannot compare its results to that of a bonafide clinical trial. It's like apples vs. oranges.
 
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Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Another way of thinking about that Israeli study would borrow the term 'signal-to-noise ratio' from electronics. Because that study's signal level was very low, were they looking at a true signal? Or were they looking at noise?
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
Natural immunity provides better long-term protection, but again herd immunity as a starting point was concerning because of the pressure it puts on the hospital system. ...
As @Swerd stated, that is correct but why chance that method to get immunity, more or less. Vaccines are safer. :D
 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
There seems to be more and more evidence that there are long term effects in some survivors of COVID. The third link below is to a preprint, I'm not a doctor or a scientist, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so the usual disclaimers apply.



 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
Mr. Rake may well have the opportunity to lose his life for "this cause" (his anti vaccine beliefs).

>>>A UCLA anesthesiologist who is vocal about his opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate was escorted out of his workplace Monday for attempting to enter the building unvaccinated. . . . “This is what happens when you stand up for freedom and when you show up to work, willing to work, despite being unvaccinated, and this is the price you have to pay sometimes,” he says. “But what they don’t realize is that I’m willing to lose everything — job, paycheck, freedom, even my life for this cause.”<<<

 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
And, here's an article from the BBC ripping the studies that purport to show that ivermectin is effective for treating COVID. They didn't beat around the bush:

>>>Campaigners for the drug point to a number of scientific studies and often claim this evidence is being ignored or covered up. But a review by a group of independent scientists has cast serious doubt on that body of research.

The BBC can reveal that more than a third of 26 major trials of the drug for use on Covid have serious errors or signs of potential fraud. None of the rest show convincing evidence of ivermectin's effectiveness.<<<

 
NINaudio

NINaudio

Audioholic Samurai
And, here's an article from the BBC ripping the studies that purport to show that ivermectin is effective for treating COVID. They didn't beat around the bush:

>>>Campaigners for the drug point to a number of scientific studies and often claim this evidence is being ignored or covered up. But a review by a group of independent scientists has cast serious doubt on that body of research.

The BBC can reveal that more than a third of 26 major trials of the drug for use on Covid have serious errors or signs of potential fraud. None of the rest show convincing evidence of ivermectin's effectiveness.<<<

Sadly, the people who think ivermectin works won't care that studies show it doesn't.
 
Trell

Trell

Audioholic Spartan
Mr. Rake may well have the opportunity to lose his life for "this cause" (his anti vaccine beliefs).

>>>A UCLA anesthesiologist who is vocal about his opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate was escorted out of his workplace Monday for attempting to enter the building unvaccinated. . . . “This is what happens when you stand up for freedom and when you show up to work, willing to work, despite being unvaccinated, and this is the price you have to pay sometimes,” he says. “But what they don’t realize is that I’m willing to lose everything — job, paycheck, freedom, even my life for this cause.”<<<

I certainly would avoid being treated by him as I question his judgement and competence as a medical doctor.
 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
Moderna is challenging the validity of two lipid particle patents it had been licensing. .pdf copies of the patents can be downloaded at the 2nd and 3rd links below. Both patents claim the benefit of a provisional patent application filed in 2008. All of the documents filed during prosecution of the patents can be downloaded at the U.S. Patent Office PAIR website (last link below)(there may be a few copyrighted non-patent documents that are of record but cannot be downloaded from PAIR).

The patents provide some insight into the lipid technology being used by Moderna. However, without reading the mountains of documents filed in the case, I'm not sure how much information concerning it's current vaccines Moderna disclosed during the patent validity challenges. If Moderna didn't disclose details of it's current vaccine, that could be part of the reason there's a standing issue (see below).

As of right now, the primary issue is standing:

>>>Standing for a petitioner to appeal a PTAB ruling requires active infringement litigation or the substantial risk that such a suit is imminent or other contractual rights will be affected.<<<

In the ever so dry world of patent law, the following qualifies as a real knee-slapper:

>>>[appeals court judge] Lourie made it clear he wanted to focus on standing. He joked with Moderna attorney Amy Wigmore of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP at the start of her first argument, “I don’t want to tell you how to argue your case but I assume you’ll begin with standing, which you’re doing in front of us right now.”<<<




 
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