Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Medications that might help against SARS-CoV-2

I've heard growing your own medicine makes it more of a sacrament, like Native American shamans gathering peyote.

This shaman has set aside his vestments and left the hunting and gathering to others.

Interesting news today: A paper just came out that studied remdesivir given early, in the viral replication phase of Covid. This is after exposure and before any severe symptoms, like in the first week. The test arm got three infusions of remdesivir and the control arm got placebo. Remdesivir was 87% effective in reducing hospitalizations! So it actually DOES work, but only when there is replicating virus for it to stop.

If you give it later, it's not very effective at all, only shortening virus clearance time by a couple of days. Not preventing hospitalizations or death. This phenomenon is very familiar: Researchers assumed Covid was one "disease" and death was caused by the virus "winning". So a lot of their trials and treatments used drugs under test on the most ill patients. (And FDA Emergency Use approval enforced this!) The only drug found back then to help was dexamethasone, a steroid known to make viral infections worse. Doctors started looking at various clues that Covid was actually two different diseases: Viral infection, followed by immune system over-reaction. So all antiviral drug trials that started after most of the virus was inactivated were useless.

Monoclonal antibodies work the same way: They are quite effective, but only in the first week after exposure. So maybe some other "antiviral" drugs are actually effective in that first "golden hour". It would be ironic if studies found that HCQ+zinc, and ivermectin worked during this same phase. This was Dr. Marik's criticism of groups that failed to replicate his IV Vitamin C for septic shock treatment: He said they started that therapy days late, when it was an ER "first hour" treatment.

Yesterday, on NPR's Morning Edition, Monoclonal antibody treatment was discussed. Turns out the unvaxxed who didn't want to take the vaxx because it is "experimental" will gladly take experimental Monoclonal antibody therapy!

You can't make this stuff up.

So, these fools forgo a $10 "experimental" vaccination, for a $2,500 "experimental" treatment + $30,000 hospital stay. Sounds just like a Conservative.

Life is an experiment and there is no control...

And the process for making monoclonal antibodies is pretty damned scary: They fuse Covid-exposed mouse spleen B-cells with human myeloma cancer cells to make "Frankenstein" hybridoma cells. Those reproduce in a vat and continue making the antibody. As opposed to getting the vaccine, and making your own antibodies.

The antibodies you end up with are mouse antibodies, and they only last about three months. If you were exposed to the SARS-COV2 virus, your T and B cells might get activated but they might not. So you may not end up with any long lasting protection.

Personally, I might not react well since I'm pretty allergic to mice. The (relatively) good news is they have been experimenting with a single subcutaneous injection of MAB instead of three IV infusions. That makes it something you could get in the ER during your initial visit, with just a small wait to see if you get anaphylactic shock before going home.

A very interesting paper on existing drugs that might help with Covid came out recently:

The TOGETHER randomised, platform clinical trial

And this is not in Billy-Bob's Cool Drugs You Might Like, this is in Lancet, one of the premier medical journals in the world. This was a large random blind drug trial that tried a number of drugs, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. All the other drug trials were stopped because they found no benefit, but the fluvoxamine trial had to be stopped because it was so effective. After enough data was collected it became unethical to keep on giving the control group placebo.

Fluvoxamine is a SSRI anti-depressant used to treat depression, OCD, and PTSD. It is effective but it usually takes months before it's benefits are seen. In this trial it was given to high-risk Covid-positive patients for a short course.

Three very important points:
1) Ivermectin, even given early and in a recommended dose, does not work!
2) Fluvoxamine is not a steroid. It does not suppress most of the immune system like steroids, just cytokine production. So unlike steroids, it can be started in the early viral replication phase without harming the immune response to the virus. At $4 per course, we should be giving this immediately to everybody with any symptoms, a positive PCR test, or a positive rapid antigen test. This could very significantly reduce Covid hospitalizations world-wide. Almost all of the serious side effects occur after months of use.
3) Fluvoxamine therapy will not interfere with a Covid patient's immune system T and B-cell activation and production of antibodies. It is also compatible with vaccination or Monoclonal Antibody treatment.

Here is a MedCram Youtube video that discusses it:

MedCram Video

Got a Moderna booster today. It's been six months, one week, and one day since my 2nd dose.

Sounds like a Vaccines Annonomous Meeting,
ALL, HELLO RICK

TAT

The Regeneron MABs are fully humanized to prevent the formation of neutralizing anti-mouse antibodies that were problematic in the early days of treatment with MABs. Mouse allergy shouldn't matter!
I only approve of Frankenstein" hybridomas on Halloween