Quote:As a handful of states begin to ease stay-at-home restrictions, no state that has opted to reopen has come close to the federally recommended 14 consecutive days of declining cases.
Trump, always the pillar of consistency , tweeted Texas’ governor was doing a great job for reopening his state despite publicly disagreeing with Georgia’s governor for doing the same just a few days ago which was just a few days after criticizing other states for not reopening. So within the span of a week Trump has taken diametrically opposed stances three times.
Trump, always the pillar of consistency , tweeted Texas’ governor was doing a great job for reopening his state despite publicly disagreeing with Georgia’s governor for doing the same just a few days ago which was just a few days after criticizing other states for not reopening. So within the span of a week Trump has taken diametrically opposed stances three times.
They don't care. If they cared/understood they would have turned on him long ago.
But if they were conservative they wouldn't have supported him in the first place either.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
Some good medical news today. Gilead Sciences drug REMDESIVIR has shown positive results. It is not a vaccine but a treatment. The drug was given to patients 'advanced' with the disease with good results. This might be the 1st test that has passed positively under the strict guidelines that a person like Fauci or Birx would approve of. It is now in Phase 3 trials with hopeful intentions to be fast tracked. So important were the results that Gilead was actually halted on the stock market this morning. This might be a game changer. The fear with the virus is that to many it could be a death sentence but now an actual treatment could diffuse some of this. The drug is not new. Just one that has passed so far strict testing.
(04-29-2020, 10:27 AM)Goalpost Wrote: Some good medical news today. Gilead Sciences drug REMDESIVIR has shown positive results. It is not a vaccine but a treatment. The drug was given to patients 'advanced' with the disease with good results. This might be the 1st test that has passed positively under the strict guidelines that a person like Fauci or Birx would approve of. It is now in Phase 3 trials with hopeful intentions to be fast tracked. So important were the results that Gilead was actually halted on the stock market this morning. This might be a game changer. The fear with the virus is that to many it could be a death sentence but now an actual treatment could diffuse some of this. The drug is not new. Just one that has passed so far strict testing.
This is important: remdesivir has shown "positive results" according to the manufacturer who has a vested interest in selling remdesivir.
Remdesivir is an anti-viral medication similar to oseltamivir which you know as Tamiflu prescribed for the flu. Tamiflu is mostly post marketing hype by the manufacturer and its efficacy has been called into question by the Cochrane Review.
It is also important to note this study compared a 5 day course of remdesivir to a 10 day course. It doesn't prove remdesivir works compared to a placebo. It just indicates a 5 and 10 day course of remdesivir have the same outcome. Their results haven't even been submitted for peer review, yet.
So it isn't a double blind study. It isn't placebo controlled. It isn't peer reviewed. This doesn't come close to the standards Fauci or Birx would approve of.
Quote:Remdesivir is not yet licensed or approved anywhere globally and has not yet been demonstrated to be safe or effective for the treatment of COVID-19. This study sought to determine whether a shorter, 5-day course of remdesivir would achieve similar efficacy results as the 10-day treatment regimen
Their results showed time to recovery in 50% of patients was 10 days if they took 5 days of remdesivir and 11 days if they took 10 days of redesivir.
Another way you can interpret that result; the longer you take remdesivir, the longer it takes for you to recover. Or if you take their drug for a shorter period of time you get better quicker which is counter-intuitive. But, that in no way proves it is effective.
So I respect your input Breech. I do differ in the vested interest argument. Most if not all financial analysts are in general agreement that the drug companies will not reap much financial reward for this. In fact Gilead re-opened modestly but the market in general went up much more on the news. And I know you didn't say it as such, but many have vilified drug companies in the past but the reality in this case is the expected profits of a treatment or vaccine compared to the dollars spent in research is but a sliver to their every day business. The cure isn't expected to be much financial rewards to drug companies.
(04-29-2020, 12:02 PM)Goalpost Wrote: So I respect your input Breech. I do differ in the vested interest argument. Most if not all financial analysts are in general agreement that the drug companies will not reap much financial reward for this. In fact Gilead re-opened modestly but the market in general went up much more on the news. And I know you didn't say it as such, but many have vilified drug companies in the past but the reality in this case is the expected profits of a treatment or vaccine compared to the dollars spent in research is but a sliver to their every day business. The cure isn't expected to be much financial rewards to drug companies.
The US government has spent over a billion dollars to stockpile Tamiflu. That's sales to just one customer. For a drug of questionable efficacy. There are billions of dollars at stake for the first company able to market a treatment. Just the rumor of a treatment can affect their stock favorably. That press release by the manufacturer is nothing but marketing hype. It essentially indicates taking Tic Tacs for 5 days has the same out come as taking Tic Tacs for 10 days. Because their study doesn't test their drug against placebo . . . and the manufacturer knows that, but it didn't stop them from making that press release touting a study with highly questionable results. Why?
(04-29-2020, 12:02 PM)Goalpost Wrote: in this case is the expected profits of a treatment or vaccine compared to the dollars spent in research is but a sliver to their every day business. The cure isn't expected to be much financial rewards to drug companies.
What the ****?
What is this based on? Could you show me some actual numbers?
Finding a vaccine/cure for this virus will be a goldmine. If not then no drug company would ever make any money from anything.
(04-29-2020, 10:35 AM)GMDino Wrote: This is the kind of dumb stuff that we have to deal with.
From a friend on FB.
And people believe it.
The same people who defend everything Trump says about the virus or defend what he says because he's just "thinking out loud".
Sad times.
Bill Gates has joined the cast as one of the boogeymen of the Right. As a proponent of vaccinations (he has done absolutely incredible work in India), he has been a boogeyman for anti-vaxxer/conspiracy idiots for years. Anti-vaxxers and Covid Conspiracists have now overlapped.
One of the impacts of the GOP validating Trump and his constant lying is that they have allowed fringe conspiracists to move into the mainstream of conservative politics. Diamond and Silk are nobodies who gained internet fame because they're black women supporting Trump. Somehow that turned into a show on Fox Nation that only just got shut down because Fox realized how dangerous two unqualified idiots spreading conspiracy theories can be when it impacts our health in a pandemic. And yet prior to that, racist Steve King invited them to testify to Congress about being "censored" on Facebook for spreading conspiracies and they were paid by the Trump campaign lol... now Trump is publicly complaining about them being removed from Fox.
Quote:Governments spent heavily on Tamiflu starting last decade when public health officials warned of deadly influenzas. But the billion-dollar investment produced only healthy outcomes for the balance sheets of the drug’s manufacturer, Roche.
This conclusion was reached by British researchers who said they could not substantiate claims by Roche and GlaxoSmithKline (which makes a rival flu drug) Relenza, that their products helped people fight off flu effects.
The British government—anticipating the potential death of 750,000 of its citizens in the event of a bird flu outbreak—spent more than $700 million stockpiling 40 million doses of Tamiflu, while the U.S. government forked out $1.3 billion on a massive antiviral reserve that includes the drug. Tamiflu is also listed by the World Health Organization as an “essential medicine.” Yet the researchers found few if any benefits from the two drugs and, in fact, discovered that they produce negative side effects (“psychiatric…renal…and metabolic adverse events”) which were previously dismissed or never acknowledged.
All the money spent by governments around the world on those stockpiles “have been thrown down the drain,” Carl Heneghan, a lead investigator of the study and a professor of evidence-based medicine at Britain’s Oxford University, told Reuters. This is because accurate data about the drugs has long been withheld from government regulators, the medical community and the public.
Five years ago, Tamiflu sales reached nearly $3 billion, in large part because of the H1N1 flu pandemic scare. The Cochrane Collaboration and the British Medical Journalfought for four years to gain access to Roche’s Tamiflu data. Once they succeeded, they conducted a joint analysis.
Roche officials dismissed the researchers’ findings, saying the drug firm “fundamentally disagrees with the overall conclusions” of the study.
“We firmly stand by the quality and integrity of our data, reflected in decisions reached by 100 regulators across the world and subsequent real-world evidence demonstrating that Tamiflu is an effective medicine in the treatment and prevention of influenza,” the company said in a prepared statement.
“Remember, the idea of a drug is that the benefits should exceed the harms,” noted Heneghan. “So if you can’t find any benefits, that accentuates the harms.”
“Why did no-one else demand this level of scrutiny before spending such huge sums on one drug?” Journal editor Fiona Godlee said to Reuters. “The whole story gives an extraordinary picture of the entrenched flaws in the current system of drug regulation and drug evaluation.”
- Danny Biederman, Noel Brinkerhoff
You can find more info at the Cochrane Review and the BMJ on Tamiflu if you're interested. (I recommend the Cochrane Review.) But, this new anti-viral is in the same class of drugs which historically has shown very little benefit, but huge rewards for the manufacturers. Tamiflu is generic now which is why the big pharma companies have these new drugs under investigation. But, so far they have all proved more hype than help. If you read the Cochrane review, there is no evidence to support the manufacturer's claims for the most important indications to prescribe these medicines and it might help you feel better maybe 8 hours sooner than a placebo. It's more likely to cause side effects than to prevent flu complications or reduce hospitalizations.
(04-29-2020, 02:33 PM)fredtoast Wrote: What the ****?
What is this based on? Could you show me some actual numbers?
Finding a vaccine/cure for this virus will be a goldmine. If not then no drug company would ever make any money from anything.
It would seem hard to believe but the analysts who live and breathe these companies via their earnings per share, revenues, pe's, dividends, gross margins, etc etc have been relatively consistent for months. They are my source thru observation of watching them on the business networks...mainly CNBC.
(04-29-2020, 03:16 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Bill Gates has joined the cast as one of the boogeymen of the Right. As a proponent of vaccinations (he has done absolutely incredible work in India), he has been a boogeyman for anti-vaxxer/conspiracy idiots for years. Anti-vaxxers and Covid Conspiracists have now overlapped.
One of the impacts of the GOP validating Trump and his constant lying is that they have allowed fringe conspiracists to move into the mainstream of conservative politics. Diamond and Silk are nobodies who gained internet fame because they're black women supporting Trump. Somehow that turned into a show on Fox Nation that only just got shut down because Fox realized how dangerous two unqualified idiots spreading conspiracy theories can be when it impacts our health in a pandemic. And yet prior to that, racist Steve King invited them to testify to Congress about being "censored" on Facebook for spreading conspiracies and they were paid by the Trump campaign lol... now Trump is publicly complaining about them being removed from Fox.
My argument, that I didn't make because why waste time, is that they are RIGHT...Bill Gates is NOT a doctor. He's just a BILLIONAIRE who is giving money to the doctors and scientists doing the research.
And you're right about the "fringe" members.
Ben Shapiro: "If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19...If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that's tragic and it's terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80" pic.twitter.com/L2UJi95OUN
(04-29-2020, 12:02 PM)Goalpost Wrote: So I respect your input Breech. I do differ in the vested interest argument. Most if not all financial analysts are in general agreement that the drug companies will not reap much financial reward for this. In fact Gilead re-opened modestly but the market in general went up much more on the news. And I know you didn't say it as such, but many have vilified drug companies in the past but the reality in this case is the expected profits of a treatment or vaccine compared to the dollars spent in research is but a sliver to their every day business. The cure isn't expected to be much financial rewards to drug companies.
What is a drug company’s everyday business? Selling drugs. So drug companies might not be a good investment for investors, but new patents without competitors during a pandemic can equal billions in sales for the company first to the market.
(04-29-2020, 10:35 AM)GMDino Wrote: This is the kind of dumb stuff that we have to deal with.
From a friend on FB.
And people believe it.
The same people who defend everything Trump says about the virus or defend what he says because he's just "thinking out loud".
Sad times.
It's all a really strange groupthink. The scariest part is that I'm friends with people I'd otherwise consider fairly sharp that are really into this stuff. I had one start a convo about chemtrails with me about 3 years back. I went along and laughed, thinking he was being sarcastic, but after getting to know him better on a weeklong business trip, I surmised that he was dead effing serious. He's one of the ones pushing the Gates theories on my feed.
I guess you can choose to believe what you like. Questioning authority is a terrific thing to do. Unfortunately, the bar for grounds to question actual authority, like medical scientific authority has gotten pretty low lately. It used to be about having some evidence or research to back something up. Now it's just about not liking what someone's research seems to bear out, and making up a secret squirrel story about intelligence agents with Q clearance discreetly and vaguely leaking out the truth of the world we never knew, lol.
People are incredibly easy to mislead. It would be a lot of fun to start one of these theories just to see who would buy in and what exactly you could make them do to embarrass themselves. Hmmmmmm.
(04-29-2020, 04:39 PM)GMDino Wrote: My argument, that I didn't make because why waste time, is that they are RIGHT...Bill Gates is NOT a doctor. He's just a BILLIONAIRE who is giving money to the doctors and scientists doing the research.
And you're right about the "fringe" members.
Ben Shapiro: "If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19...If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that's tragic and it's terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80" pic.twitter.com/L2UJi95OUN
Why this kind of propaganda is believed by people who claim to be pro life will always confound me.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine that these are the same people that criticized the idea of universal health care due to alleged "death panels" and the idea of deciding not to treat elderly patients with likely poor survival outcomes. It seemed to really appal them back then, but now they're all for sacrificing people in their late years because they're old and, you know, gonna die soon anyhow.
Quote:Tom Ridge: Selfish protests against stay-at-home orders dishonor America's veterans Apparently these protesters with their weapons and false bravado think they are smarter than the medical experts. Tom Ridge Opinion contributor
Bennie Adkins died the other day. The retired Army command sergeant major was 86 and had fought a 23-day battle against coronavirus. A little more than 50 years ago, halfway around the world, Bennie’s heroic actions at the battle of Dai Do in Vietnam resulted in his being awarded the Medal of Honor.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about my fellow veterans. Honorable men like Bennie Adkins. And John McCain. We carried the weapons of war in defense of our nation and our liberties.
In recent days, we have seen images of Americans carrying weapons as part of their protests to immediately reopen society. What are they planning to do, shoot the virus with their AR-15s?
These self-absorbed and selfish Americans complain they are irritated, anxious, bored, upset — unhappy that their lives have been affected by this temporary restraint on their freedoms. Some have even gotten into confrontations with nurses and other front-line health care workers who believe now is not the time to resume normality.
Share your coronavirus story: Contact USA TODAY Opinion's hotline. We may publish your comments.
Every day, there are heartbreaking new reports of nurses and doctors sick or dying because of their service to our country. They find themselves at the tip of the spear as we combat this pandemic. That they have to take precious time from getting desperately needed rest or being with their families to counter these protesters makes my blood boil.
Of course, our First Amendment gives them the right to protest. Our veterans helped ensure it. But let’s make one thing clear: It is impossible to characterize the actions of those who are protesting orders to stay at home as courageous or heroic. Health care workers on front lines
In this war against the indiscriminate and lethal enemy, nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers and countless other health care workers are serving on the front lines. While wearing a different uniform, they are surely putting their lives at risk just as I did as a young Army staff sergeant 50 years ago.
As a veteran, I look at these protests with a different perspective and believe many veterans would agree. Some may not. That’s OK. This is America.
Apparently these protesters with their weapons and false bravado — many of whom risk spreading the virus further by refusing to wear masks and standing apart from one another — are smarter than the medical experts. They have decided to ignore the public discussions about incrementally turning our economy back on because it doesn’t fit their personal timetables.
Let's consider that while out of work, and I don’t for a minute minimize the real financial pain this is causing, they are generally confined to their homes, with refrigerators, televisions, the internet and the ability to take a walk, go to the store or just talk to a neighbor.
Let’s also focus for a moment on the millions of Americans who have worn the uniform of this great country, put themselves in harm's way in ways most could not comprehend, and protected the right of these protesters to complain.
And let’s remember those whose service resulted in capture, among them my friend John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years in the Hanoi Hilton.
That’s 66 months. Our social distancing has not yet reached eight weeks.
Those prisoners of war were not able to take a walk or drive to the grocery store for supplies. Now there may be a few Americans who don’t think our POWs were heroes, but most Americans have a deep appreciation of their service and sacrifice. Nation needs us to sacrifice
The point is this. Your country has asked you to forgo your normal personal and professional routine for a couple of months in the war against COVID-19. No question, it is difficult and sometimes feels unbearable as economic and emotional stress mount each day. But the pandemic in less than three months has taken the lives of more Americans than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.
The entire country is under siege, but you are not in the trenches of France, not gaining ground inch by inch in the Pacific, not slogging through the paddies and jungles in Vietnam, and not taking on global terrorists in desert warfare. And you are NOT prisoners of war. You are at home.
We are citizens of the greatest country on planet Earth. As citizens, we are asked to wear temporarily a unique uniform of service decorated with ribbons for patience, understanding and support of the troops on the front lines.
I don’t think that is too much to ask, especially if we check the history books and remind ourselves that we are a resilient country, and that we can prevail in this battle if we work together.
Politics be damned. No time for it now. We can sort it out later. Same team. Same fight. Let’s get on with it. Tom Ridge was the 43rd governor of Pennsylvania and first U.S. secretary of Homeland Security. He served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for Valor.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(04-29-2020, 03:16 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Bill Gates has joined the cast as one of the boogeymen of the Right. As a proponent of vaccinations (he has done absolutely incredible work in India), he has been a boogeyman for anti-vaxxer/conspiracy idiots for years. Anti-vaxxers and Covid Conspiracists have now overlapped.
One of the impacts of the GOP validating Trump and his constant lying is that they have allowed fringe conspiracists to move into the mainstream of conservative politics. Diamond and Silk are nobodies who gained internet fame because they're black women supporting Trump. Somehow that turned into a show on Fox Nation that only just got shut down because Fox realized how dangerous two unqualified idiots spreading conspiracy theories can be when it impacts our health in a pandemic. And yet prior to that, racist Steve King invited them to testify to Congress about being "censored" on Facebook for spreading conspiracies and they were paid by the Trump campaign lol... now Trump is publicly complaining about them being removed from Fox.
I think Fox was more worried about legal liability . . .
"Over the last few weeks, the duo has advanced all sorts of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. They've questioned the death toll. They've questioned whether the virus is being 'deliberately spread.' They've suggested the 'Deep State' is working 'behind the scenes' and that it is 'engineered.'
(04-29-2020, 04:57 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: What is a drug company’s everyday business? Selling drugs. So drug companies might not be a good investment for investors, but new patents without competitors during a pandemic can equal billions in sales for the company first to the market.
Gilead did 22 billion in sales last year. One analyst at Bank of America estimated the drug has a potential of 2.5 billion which seems like a lot but that is roughly a shade more than 10 percent of Gilead's total business. Gilead was priced yesterday at around 80 dollars per share and went up roughly 8 dollars in early market trading before it was halted. About 10 percent...hmmm. It then settled down after it was reopened and ended the day up roughly 5 percent. By the way, Gilead's 22 billion in yearly sales places it around 10th in the drug industry.
As far as investing, I don't have the play money, but this industry has some mixed messages due to the political climate. I would probably invest in medical devices like Medtronic, Stryker, or robotics like Intuitive Surgical. But with the delay in elective surgeries, some of these companies more likely hurt at the moment from it. I also like the 'wearables'...self monitoring and just download the info to your doctor
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