Why Cheap, Older Drugs That Might Treat COVID Never Get Out of the Lab

Jreboll wrote:I stocked up on Ivermectin, zinc, antibiotics (I was already taking Vit d3) when nothing else was available.  Once the vaccines were available then I went for that.
The problem with older, cheaper drugs is they distract  some from following our health leaders.  There are thousands of older drugs.  Should we waste time in testing them all while the pandemic is raging?

Plan B wrote:

Jreboll wrote:I stocked up on Ivermectin, zinc, antibiotics (I was already taking Vit d3) when nothing else was available.  Once the vaccines were available then I went for that.
The problem with older, cheaper drugs is they distract  some from following our health leaders.  There are thousands of older drugs.  Should we waste time in testing them all while the pandemic is raging?

Drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin showed hints of value initially but failed in clinical trials — only to remain in circulation, at least partly because their use symbolized affinity in the culture war for some of President Donald Trump's followers.

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Over 20 countries have adopted ivermectin for COVID-19. The evidence base is much larger and has much lower conflict of interest than typically used to approve drugs.

Jreboll wrote:That’s a whole lot of nothing.  I went through the paper, looked up about 15 references and saw it was a lot of garbage.  The following quote sums it all up:
“While many treatments have some level of efficacy, they do not replace vaccines and other measures to avoid infection. Only 24% of ivermectin studies show zero events in the treatment arm. Multiple treatments are typically used in combination, which may be significantly more effective”