“It’s so tragic – a half-million people will die unnecessarily,” the Los Altos Hills resident told the Town Crier last week. “People say they need more data – are you (expletive) kidding me?”

Not only is fluvoxamine effective, according to Kirsch, but its side effects are minimal – usually only nausea. He said people run a greater risk taking Tylenol. Is the nearly 40-year-old generic drug also potentially effective against COVID variants? Kirsch says yes.

Still, the vast majority of doctors and the media are holding back. It’s beyond frustrating for the veteran tech entrepreneur, who is used to making things happen.

At the outset of the pandemic, Kirsch launched the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, pouring his own money into funding studies on potentially effective drugs already on the market. When he found the antidepressant fluvoxamine was startlingly effective at preventing COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths, he wanted to shout it out to the world. To his surprise, media outlets weren’t picking up the story. And online platforms censored his communications.

Kirsch received major exposure during a March 7 segment on “60 Minutes,” which documented his connection to doctors who found surprisingly effective results with fluvoxamine.

That story featured Dr. David Seftel, whose study of 125 participants followed a COVID outbreak of 200 workers at Golden Gate Fields racetrack in Berkeley. Of the 77 COVID patients who took fluvoxamine, none were hospitalized. Of the 48 who declined, 12.5% were hospitalized and one died.

Another trial, headed by Dr. Eric Lenze of Washington University in St. Louis, involved 152 patients. Again, none of the 80 patients who took the drug experienced clinical deterioration from COVID. Of the 72 who received the placebo, 8% did. Fluvoxamine’s anti-inflammatory properties seemed to stop progression of the disease.

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“The medical community is seriously dragging their heels on overwhelmingly positive evidence (and no negative evidence) because they fear if they make another HCQ mistake, it’s over for their credibility,” Kirsch wrote in one of several articles on the matter. “So they are going to wait for Phase 3 data before making a move. People will die, but their credibility will be intact.”