Last year Remdesivir was touted as a “game-changer” against Covid19 by many, including Donald Trump and the World Health Organization. The medicine did not increase survivability nor cut the hospital stay period of coronavirus patients. No results were found in the trials to prove that Remdesivir helped in saving the lives of critical patients or in reducing their hospital stay. Remdesivir was approved on May 1, 2020 by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use only.
Now, an article July 15th in the Journals of the American Medical Association (JAMA) cites that the commonly recommended and prescribed drug Remdesivir used to treat patients with Covid-19 shows little to no efficacy in treating the disease over other treatments. Fact is though, this is one of the few drugs authorized for treating Covid-19 in hospital settings under an emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA.
Michael E. Ohl, MD. is an infectious disease specialist and staff physician at Iowa City VA. He is also an investigator with the Center for Comprehensive Access and Delivery Research and Evaluation (CADRE) and the Veterans Rural Health Resource Center (VRHRC).
The article co-authored by Michael E. Ohl, MD; Donald R. Miller, ScD3,4; and Brian C. Lund , PharmD, studied almost 6,000 veterans hospitalized with Covid-19 in 123 Veterans Administration hospitals across the USA. The doctors found that the drug Remdesivir had little to no better result in the control group regarding survival. In a thirty day study of patients on Remdesivir 12.2% died, while 10.6% of patients receiving standard treatment died. The study said that for those “hospitalized with COVID-19, Remdesivir treatment was not associated with improved survival but was associated with longer hospital stays.”
A February 2021 report by the World Health Organization Solidarity Trial researched in “405 hospitals in 30 countries, [and] 11,330 adults” found similar results in that “Remdesivir treatment did not reduce the length of hospital stay or improve survival compared with the standard of care”. This report has been cited by 529 separate authorities. The study also showed that Remdesivir led to longer hospital stays with no benefit to survival, yet dramatically increased the cost of care.
National Institutes of Health
In fact, a December 2020 National Institute for Health report on the WHO study found that Remdesivir was less effective than the unapproved and demonized Hydroxychloroquine.
In another study titled “Use of Ivermectin Is Associated With Lower Mortality in Hospitalized Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019” by Juliana Cepelowicz Rajter, MD, (Broward Health Medical Center) and associates, the long used drug Ivermectin showed “Mortality was significantly lower in the Ivermectin group”.
Ohl stated that “clinicians should avoid admitting people or keeping people in the hospital solely to receive Remdesivir if they do not meet other criteria for hospitalization.”
Longer hospital stays using Remdesivir require a median hospital stay of 6 days versus only 3 days for standard treatments in local hospitals. But, the average hospital stay for patients with Covid19 in ICU is 29.7 days and a much higher price tag. The price tag on a ventilator is higher still.
Dr. Ohl remarked that “clinicians were not discharging patients who otherwise met the criteria for hospital discharge until the Remdesivir course was completed.” The longer hospital stay requirement by using Remdesivir takes scarce hospital beds for unnecessarily longer treatment. Dr. Ohl, stated that “The recommended Remdesivir treatment course is a somewhat arbitrary 5 or 10 days depending on illness severity.” Remdesivir is only available intravenously.
Michael Reed is Editor and Publisher of The Standard newspaper, print and online, and TheStandardSC YouTube channel where many video reports may be found. Please share freely and donate to The Standard on this page to assure the continued availability of news that is ignored too often by the dominant media.
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