Murky Merck, Big Pharma Jerk
Merck stigmatized Ivermectin, a highly-effective therapeutic while creating their own less-effective alternative. But whether you buy their new Covid-pill or not, guess what? You already paid for it.
Merck Pharmaceuticals completed a 30-day trial for molnupiravir, their new therapeutic pill developed to treat Covid-19. The 775 patients who participated in the study had mild-to-moderate cases of Covid along with one or more co-morbidities that put them at higher-risk of a worse outcome.
RESULTS?
7.3% who received molnupiravir were either hospitalized or died compared to 14.1% of the placebo group, suggesting the drug successfully reduced the rate of hospitalization and death by roughly half.
Merck has since applied for EUA status and the FDA’s final decision on whether or not to make molnupiravir widely available to the public under emergency-use is expected in December. The UK has already approved it as of today.
The investment and rapid development of Merck’s new Covid-pill is bizarre considering there have already been 65 studies completed for ivermectin, also a therapeutic pill for Covid-19, with superior results both as a prophylaxis (preventing infection) and as an early treatment option.
Molnupiravir has been so embraced that it has billions worth of pre-orders based on a single human trial that didn’t even start until August 2021 and is magically well on the path to full EUA-status. Meanwhile the prevailing narrative behind ivermectin remains stigmatized as a horse dewormer, politicized as a right-wing drug with no evidence to support it’s safety or efficacy. Youtube even shamelessly put strict rules in place to suppress any discussion on the subject.
QUICK REVIEW OF IVERMECTIN
Over four billion treatments of ivermectin have been administered to humans over the last forty-plus years resulting in an estimated 20 deaths. By comparison, Aspirin kills 3,000 humans every year. Needless to say, Ivermectin (for humans) is one of the safest drugs in the world, has been on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines since 1987, and even won a Nobel Prize in 2015.
None of this has stopped the relentless onslaught of propaganda:
Here's Rachel Maddow lying her ass off:
ABC parroting misinformation from the CDC:
Seth Meyers reading the cue cards cuz he's a gOoD bOy:
The FDA, which approved Ivermectin for human use (albeit not specifically for Covid-19) pretending it’s animal medicine:
There was (and continues to be) a legit conspiracy to discourage this highly-effective and incredibly safe life-saving drug in the middle of a pandemic (the loudest advocate for it’s use has been Dr. Pierre Kory and I highly recommend listening to his full discussion with Bret Weinstein).
ENTER: MERCK PHARMACEUTICALS
There are multiple theories behind the suppression of ivermectin, one of which has been to fast-track molnupiravir, an ivermectin knock-off. Not surprisingly, Merck was one of the earliest to aggressively discredit ivermectin:
But NIH had already published preliminary results from an ivermectin trial which contradicted Merck’s statement:
“Ivermectin, a US Food and Drug Administration-approved anti-parasitic agent, was found to inhibit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) replication in vitro.
There were no severe adverse drug events recorded in the study.
A 5-day course of ivermectin was found to be safe and effective in treating adult patients with mild COVID-19.”
Merck’s CEO Kenneth Frazier suspiciously announced his voluntary retirement five hours prior to Merck’s false statement. The timing between these two announcements is undeniably damning.
Isn’t it strange then that despite the preliminary trial results, Dr. Fauci, who the NIH operates under, still continued to caution against using ivermectin?
You’d think the Chief of the Department of Bioethics at NIH would have had a word or two to say about this. I’m sure her silence has nothing to do with the fact that the person running the Department of Bioethics is Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady. Whoops!
BACK TO MERCK
So a Big Pharma company dishonestly attacks a life-saving drug to elevate their own future product. This was deeply corrupt in itself, or business-as-usual for the American healthcare industry. What makes this particular example of corruption uniquely egregious…?
Merck held the original patent on ivermectin.
Which means that Merck has always had a plethora of data at their disposal, as much if not more than anyone else, and therefore should have been keenly aware of it’s potential use for Covid-19. But even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt, there were already dozens of studies publicly available on ivmmeta.com, plus the preliminary study published by NIH. Merck knew damn well that ivermectin was safe and effective.
So why didn’t they just renew their patent on ivermectin? Why waste time developing an entirely new drug with zero long-term studies that was less safe (due to the lack of long-term studies) and less effective (based on their own short-term studies)?
Because Big Pharma’s bottom-line has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with pleasing stockholders.
HOW YOU PAID FOR IT
The Biden Administration already pre-ordered $1.2 billion worth in June 2021.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), collaborated with the DoD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) and Army Contracting Command, on the $1.2 billion purchase agreement for the 1.7 million 5-day treatment courses of molnupiravir to be procured only if FDA grants emergency use authorization (EUA) or approval.
Merck is charging the U.S. Government $712 for a 5-day treatment of molnupiravir while a 5-day treatment of ivermectin costs under $100.
If Merck invested their own money upfront into researching and developing this new drug, it's not unreasonable for them to expect some financial return. This is a private Big Pharma company, after all. But that’s not what happened.
Molnupiravir was developed at Emory University using U.S. government funds totaling $35 million as a possible treatment for a multitude of infectious diseases. Emory then licensed molnupiravir to Ridgeback Biotherapeutics (partnered with Merck Pharmaceuticals) to continue development as a potential Covid-pill.
(Extensive details on this can be read here).
TO RECAP:
U.S. taxpayers have paid $35 million for the development of molnupiravir.
U.S. taxpayers have paid $1.2 billion in pre-orders for molnupiravir.
Taxpayer dollars covered the cost of development, then Merck turned around and charged the government (taxpayers, again) forty-times more than it cost to make the drug. Merck is making nothing but profit while at the same time Americans are being denied a safer, more effective, and exceedingly cheaper alternative.
According to the Financial Times, Merck expects global revenue from their knock-off pill to produce up to $7 billion in sales just in 2022. But we’re still told we cannot afford universal healthcare.
If you’re pissed off right now, good. You should be.
- - - - MORE ON IVERMECTIN - - - -
“Ivermectin is an FDA-approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent with demonstrated antiviral activity against a number of DNA and RNA viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).” (SOURCE)
Journal of Controlled Release
Volume 329, Pages 758-761 (January 2021)
“Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.” (SOURCE)
American Journal of Therapeutics (July/August 2021)
“During mass IVM treatments in Peru, excess deaths fell by a mean of 74% over 30 days in its ten states with the most extensive treatments. Reductions in deaths correlated with the extent of IVM distributions in all 25 states.” (SOURCE)
US National Library of Medicine, NIH (August 2021)
“Ask yourself why India’s success against the Delta variant with Ivermectin is such a closely guarded secret by the NIH and CDC. Second, ask yourself why no major media outlets reported this fact, but instead, tried to confuse you with false information by saying the deaths in India are 10 times greater than official reports.” (SOURCE)
India's Ivermectin Blackout, The Desert Review (Aug 2021)