FDA’s advisers worry about trust in Covid-19 vaccine


A sign for the Food And Drug Administration is seen outside of the agency's headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, on July 20.

Data on the Covid-19 drug remdesivir show that it has only modest benefits and isn’t a “home run,” former US Health and Human Services official-turned whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright said Thursday.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved remdesivir Thursday to treat hospitalized Covid-19 patients — the first drug to be approved for coronavirus. 

Bright said it’s not an impressive drug.

“It’s important to note that even the data that we saw in the United States from that drug show that the benefit was modest,” Bright told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “It wasn’t a home run. It wasn’t a remarkable improvement in terms of mortality, or even the lengthening or shortening of the length of hospital stay, but it did show some marginal benefit.”

A World Health Organization-sponsored global study found that remdesivir did not help Covid-19 patients survive or recover faster. 

“The FDA clearly has reviewed all of the data that they have available to them from the company to review the efficacy and safety of that drug,” Bright said. 

“It’s not too surprising that another, perhaps even larger, well-controlled study from the WHO would refute that data,” he added.

Bright said that it’s likely that larger studies, like the WHO’s, would show that the marginal benefit of remdesivir may become even more marginal, depending on the population of those using the drug.


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