With a little digging, it becomes clear that redesivir has an astonishing, if not discomfiting, history. It was originally designed to combat Hepatitis C but failed in trials and was not put into production. Gilead Sciences, the California-based biotech company who owns the license for the drug, then repurposed it to fight Ebola, which it wasn’t effective against, either. Now it’s being hyped as a “cure” for coronavirus.[2]

What do we know about Remdesivir? First of all, it is in no way a cure, as even its supporters are careful to insist. It cannot stop the virus from hijacking healthy cells in your body. However, it theoretically can render those co-opted cells defective so the virus cannot spread inside your body so quickly. An early study on 125 patients at the University of Chicago Medical Center, 116 of whom were severely ill, seemed to produce positive results, with only two people dying.[3] Other small trials in the United States have shown benefits as well.[4]

But, there’s been one negative test of the drug, and it raises some serious questions.

Gilead Sciences, the California-based biotech company who owns the license for the drug, initiated two phase-3 studies in China before the outbreak started in the United States. The first study randomized around 400 very sick patients to receive either five or ten days of remdesivir. The second study took 600 patients with more moderate symptoms to receive five or ten days of the drug or not to receive the drug at all.[5] This second trial was the gold standard. Results were not encouraging, however. According to an accidentally posted report of trial #NCT0457656 by the WHO, 237 patients underwent full clinical randomization (158 given remdesivir, 79 in the control group). Remdesivir seemed to make no difference in how many patients went home from the hospital or how quickly. More worryingly, the trial had to be stopped in 18 patients, versus only four in the control group, due to extreme adverse effects. Someone deleted the findings soon after, but not before STATnews was able to get a screenshot.[6]

In the wake of those results, Gilead’s stock price, which had leaped up to $83.99/share on the positive news April 16 tanked so fast on Monday that trading had to be halted.[7] It looked for a minute like remdesivir would go the way of drugs like the anti-inflammatory sarilumab: initially promising, but not all that helpful against full blown COVID.[8] The company, of course, argued that the negative result was premature and should be thrown out. Dr. Fauci mentioned only the positive, uncontrolled American studies in yesterday’s White House CTF briefing. And even though Fauci was measured, shareholders celebrated again as the stock rocketed upward once more.

Thinking back to the men with guns in Michigan, it is not just that they are defending some notion of liberty; many also don’t believe that there is any danger. Others believe that they are strong enough to withstand any illness. And still more take a fatalistic approach that, if this doesn’t kill them, something else will. The problem with their fatalism is that it is solipsistic. They don’t acknowledge the life of the grocery store clerk with diabetes, the elderly parent, or the healthcare worker—to whom they become a mobile viral timebomb. This sentiment masks something more disturbing: that only the white, gun-toting life matters. Plus, in a pinch, their insurance (Medicaid?) will cover the hospital stay and the cost of the remdesivir.

Notes