Tenchu's Thoughts: The People's Cure for the Coronavirus, Part III
As some of you may know, I've been following Gilead's experimental treatment for COVID-19 called Remdesivir. Today, there is good news to share:
FDA Authorizes Emergency Use of Gilead Drug Remdesivir for Covid-19 Patients
Some key takeaways from the article:
- The treatment shortened the recovery time for patients to 11 days vs. 15 days for the placebo group. That's significant, especially in efforts to "flatten the curve" and avoid hospitals getting overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.
- The death rate for those getting treated with Remdesivir was 8.0% vs. 11.6% for the placebo group. To be sure, that difference isn't considered "clinically significant," but it's still a positive data point.
- Gilead committed to making enough Remdesivir for 210,000 treatment courses by the end of May and donating all of that free of charge. There is no word as to how much Gilead will charge after that, though Gilead would probably do best to not charge too much.
- Trump announced the news from the Oval Office while standing next to Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day. That's significant because ... see below.
What does this mean?
Once again, American ingenuity and American capitalism pulls through. Mind you, Remdesivir wasn't something that just appeared out of thin air. It was originally intended as an antiviral medication to stop Ebola, but the results were negative. But when the coronavirus epidemic hit, Gilead pulled Remdesivir off the shelf and gave it a shot with good results so far.
All this was done by a for-profit capitalist company. All this was done by one of the pillars of Big Pharma, the oh-so-evil corporations that seek to keep prescription drug prices high. They are the ones who want to keep the "profits" in "for-profit health care."
But uh oh. Trump himself dared to announce the good news. He also dared to stand beside the CEO of Gilead.
You know what that means.
"Orange Man Bad! Rich Pharma Exec bad! Profits bad!"
Already the conspiracy theorists across the Internet smell something fishy. (When did they not?)
Already the Democrats, who are quite frankly in bed with China, are thinking of ways to nationalize Remdesivir. I mentioned that before in Tenchu's Thoughts, but it's worth mentioning again.
Already the Social Distance Warriors will start to associate Gilead and Remdesivir with "Lysol" Trump. (For example, Sly on this thread is convinced that Remdesivir is a "failed drug.")
And already the alt-right is suspecting a conflict of interest between Dr. Fauci and Remdesivir because Fauci is the head of NIAID, which sponsored the huge clinical trial.
But the truth is that once again American capitalism and American ingenuity is coming out on top. We might be late to this war, just like every other war we joined, and we might have screwed up with our handling of this pandemic, but never underestimate our ability to come out on top when we really want to.
Tenchusatsu |
