Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment

Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment

Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment | AP News

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators on Wednesday authorized the first pill against COVID-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans will be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus.

The long-awaited milestone comes as U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all rising and health officials warn of a tsunami of new infections from the omicron variant that could overwhelm hospitals.

The drug, Paxlovid, is a faster way to treat early COVID-19 infections, though initial supplies will be extremely limited. All of the previously authorized drugs against the disease require an IV or an injection.

An antiviral pill from Merck also is expected to soon win authorization. But Pfizer’s drug is all but certain to be the preferred option because of its mild side effects and superior effectiveness, including a nearly 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.

“The efficacy is high, the side effects are low and it’s oral. It checks all the boxes,” said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic. “You’re looking at a 90% decreased risk of hospitalization and death in a high-risk group — that’s stunning.”

Health experts agree that vaccination remains the best way to protect against COVID-19. But with roughly 40 million American adults still unvaccinated, effective drugs will be critical to blunting the current and future waves of infection.

Interesting. Still doesn't seem as convenient or as proactive as just getting the shot, but it's something.

Will you be getting this?

what happened to the other company working on the pill treatment? ?

Didn't even know Pfizer was working on one

@zaryia: Nice! So the FDA fast tracked this one! This is great news.

John Stossel actually did a "should we abolish the FDA" segment very recently, in relation to this drug being so successful, but still waiting on FDA approval. I wonder if he moved the needle at all?

I'm vaccinated, so I probably wouldn't take it myself.

Stossel is a crazy libertarian with no type of medical degree, so any of his blogger/op-ed statements on the FDA and Covid are hogwash.

@zaryia: Right, but his segment was somehow spot on regarding this drug. He pointed out that when a drug is clearly this effective, it's irresponsible to not allow people to have it.

Not sure why one needs a medical degree to point that out.

You need expert knowledge to understand why it specifically takes long in testing for the components involved in the medicine. There could be all kinds of adverse reactions. For example, they evaluate hundreds of thousands of pages of data to authorize the vaccine. I don't think Stossel went through even 1 of those pages, muchless understood what any of those pages would have said.

How do drugs and vaccines get FDA approval? | MD Anderson Cancer Center

How are drugs approved for use in the United States? | NICHD - Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (nih.gov)

Nice, wonder how the right will lie about this.

also should be mention. people dont get over using anti bodices are bad. like really fking bad.

Those results are certainly promising!

Nanobots

Globalists

Gates/Soros/Rockefellers/etc.

Satanism

Child sacrifice

ummm....what else, what else....

5g!

Ah yes how could I forget the 5G

I believe that's data review.

I'm not saying the FDA couldn't or shouldn't have been faster for this pill. But if someone makes that claim to a specific item, like this pill, I would probably want to hear these specifics from an expert and not lol John Stossell. Like maybe a physicians group.

Hopefully one day the pill will replace the vaccine. I've had enough of getting jabbed

Doubtful from what I've read about it. The vaccine still remains superior, and by far more convenient.

HAARP!!!

Or better yet, their tax dollars were spent to fund the R&D of it, just so some private billionaires can sell back the drug the people paid for already at a profit. It's hard not to be more successful than your competitors when you get free money from the government to cover your costs and your competitors don't.

@zaryia: "Will you be getting this?"

And get the 6G tracking dream advertiser? Of course not. I'll stick with the 5G tracker without advertisements beamed directly into my dreams in vaccine form.

Good, my tax dollars saving lives. Although would this even be needed if people would stop being extremely irresponsible and just take their shot?

I'll wait until the horse medicine version comes out. I won't be feeding the deep state lizard people big pharma satanic cult. But thanks Trump for creating this pill!

It's not even needed with Omicron taking over as the dominant strain and providing natural immunity. But Pfizer CEO needs a new yacht.

Natural immunity isn't the cure all you keep pretending it is. Otherwise, people won't have got covid more than once.

This is good. Means hospitals don't have to worry about being impacted.

They should end this pandemic now. No more hospitals impacted.

I will take the pill as long as it doesn't **** with my mRNA, the mechanism that the vaccines operates by, and which I believe made me severely ill for seven months nearly to the point of suicide and which various doctors could not explain, which started after my first inoculation, worsened with the second, peaked six months later, then mysteriously decreased until I was back to normal.

I will never take another mRNA vaccine, ever. You would literally need to tie me down, kicking and screaming, to get that needle in me again. I don't care what it's for, and I don't give a shit how many have taken it with no ill effect. But I am afraid of getting C-19 due to being immunocompromised, so depending on how a pill works, I may try it.

Some people have a harder time with the vaccine than others. As for mRNA, what the vaccine does is direct your mRNA to reproduce copies of the protein known as the spike protein on the outside of the coronavirus.

There are side effects of the pill as well.

From what I understand how the vaccine works, it slips inside your cell and kind of "tricks" your immune system into creating anti-bodies from the presence of a particular protein, as you note, that is found on the outside of the C-19 virus.

Alright, fine.

Obviously, I'm not a medical professional privy to the intricacies of the inner-workings of this mechanism, but it reeks to me of suspicion concordant to the symptoms I had that were aligned with an auto-immune response based on the research I've done. There are also medical papers I've read that claim that, hypothetically, by this mechanism, it could inadvertently trigger an auto-immune response in certain people.

Would I recommend people not to get vaccinated based on my experience? No. I have to place faith in the numbers and research we have. But hell if I'm ever going to getting another mRNA shot. This wasn't just a day of feeling shitty, it was seven months of an absolute living hell that nearly brought me to suicide.

New study adds more evidence for omicron immune evasion -- ScienceDaily

Omicron is dodging the immune system—but boosters show promising signs (nationalgeographic.com)

Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses | Imperial News | Imperial College London

How can someone be so consistently wrong and so easily owned. 😂

Also as we speak there are thousands of unvaccinated people who are suffering and will likely die, but could be saved with this pill. Screaming "muh Omicron" and "teh CEO yacth" memes won't alter that fact.

To be sure different people have different reactions. You seem to have had an extreme reaction. Good luck in the future. Stay safe.

Thanks, I've been masking up and carrying hand sanitizer everywhere I go and will continue to do so. Not to protect me from air particles but to stop me from unconsciously touching my face, which, I think if I'm going to catch C-19, that'll probably be how. I can always avoid people who are coughing/sneezing.

But I'm afraid if I catch this bug, that may be all she wrote. My immune system is trashed and fighting off a common cold is no longer an inconvenience. You stay safe as well.

@zaryia:

Here in Alberta, we have had a spike in cases, but not in hospitalizations (yet). This latest wave began on about Dec 15/16, and appears to be rising faster than any of the previous waves.

https://www.google.com/search?q=alberta+covid&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA883CA883&oq=&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s

This is assuming the new spike in cases IS indeed due to Omicron, which at this point I don't know for sure, but it would certainly make sense, given what you posted about how easily it gets around vaccines.

So I guess in about two weeks time, we will know for sure exactly how dangerous it is, based on how many hospitalizations we end up with compared to the number of cases. If AHS releases any relevant data on hospitalizations, I'll make sure to post it.

A sudden and sharp spike in cases with very few hospitalizations is consistent with what has been reported on Omicron so far. As was the case in South Africa, those cases plummeted soon after they spiked as well. Because of how infectious it is, most people got it almost immediately but recovered in 2-3 days with head cold symptoms. So naturally, expect deaths and hospitalizations to be ignored, and for media reporting to focus on how fast it's spreading, and new cases reported because it sounds scarier.

@eoten: you can't simply decide how it went one place is how it's going to go everywhere else... it gives reason for optimism, but is far from a guarantee. Just looking at the United States, the south and the north bad covid seasons are different by about 4-6 months. The real data is showing more breakthrough infections and those people are doing fine... the unvaxxed are still ending up in about the same situation. Even if omicron it's less severe we know it's much more infectious and you can still end up in the same spot. You proceed with caution and ease up as appropriate if severity is indeed not causing problems, you don't assume the best case and then try to put the water back after the dam already broke. I can't even fathom how much more death we would have if we handled the response as you suggest. Don't quit your day job, because epidemiology is not your thing.

Yes well Canada caused the NHL to shut down. Why?

I hope deaths do become reduced in a months or two.

But the sad fact is we are currently in higher weekly deaths this last week and the vaccine/booster is still VERY helpful and recommended by the medical community.

Remember, it's the vaccines (mostly), distancing, and masking that got us this far. Hundreds of thousands of deaths prevented in US alone. If we had just waited for Omicron to magically come along (and even then, this weaker variant wouldn't be as "good news" without our current vaccination rate), without any other precautions things would be extremely more dire. Far more than 800k deaths.

These need to be over the counter, not prescription.

@x_hedon: the odds of getting a new antiviral OTC is slim and none...it is not for prophylactic use, and a large segment of the population will eat this like candy.

Lets not promote ways to "trim the herd"...

No different than saying consumers will "eat them like candy".

As an argument against OTC.

Pfizer and every other big pharm design their clinical studies to focus on what gives the best results in their favor. They then compile the raw data, have to show it to no one, write up whatever they see fit that suits their needs for peer review and give their own write up (not the raw data) to peer review.

Why would anyone willingly just pop this pill into their mouth? There has been no proper clinical study done and info about the side effects of it says:

Possible side effects of PAXLOVID are:

• Liver Problems. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any of these signs and symptoms of liver problems: loss of appetite, yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice), dark-colored urine, pale-colored stools and itchy skin, or stomach area (abdominal) pain
• Resistance to HIV Medicines. If you have untreated HIV infection, PAXLOVID may lead to some HIV medicines not working as well in the future
• Other possible side effects include:
  • altered sense of taste
  • diarrhea
  • high blood pressure
  • muscle aches

These are not all the possible side effects of PAXLOVID. Not many people have taken PAXLOVID. Serious and unexpected side effects may happen. PAXLOVID is still being studied, so it is possible that all of the risks are not known at this time.

I can't believe how many brainwashed people there are out there that are so scared, they're willing to pump themselves with any kind of drug - be it one that hasn't been clinically studied properly (here's looking at you covid shots and this pill) or a drug that has been proven to be safe and is taken by millions of people for many years (here's looking at you hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin), but no proper study has been done with them against covid either (lots speculation as to why).

I'm not saying the shots haven't helped with the initial strain of covid (they clearly don't do anything for the latest strain - Omicron). I'm not saying other meds can't be helpful in the prevention and/or treatment.

What I'm saying is:

Be sure to educate yourself. Read up on anything and everything. Don't disregard what one doctor says because another one says the opposite. Find all the information you need and make an educated decision on your own behalf and don't shoot down someone else just because they might feel differently over all of this than you do. Be smart, don't simply follow because you saw something on TV or read it in a click bait article or believe that social media giants are doing you a favor by deciding what you should read as they ban stuff as "misinformation".

Read, research, question and educate yourself and then make a decision.

We know from the leaked Darpa documents that treatment was available all along. It is ivermectin.