Medicine, Money, and the Drug at the Center of the Storm

<p>A drug that failed to become the answer for Ebola suddenly became one of the most important treatments of the COVID era.</p><p>At the same time, cheap medications like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin became deeply controversial, social-media platforms restricted certain treatment claims, and governments spent billions on newer pharmaceutical drugs.</p><p>Was this simply medicine evolving under extraordinary pressure—or did money, fear, and institutional power shape the treatments we were told to trust?</p><p>In Part Two of our COVID series, we examine the trials, the pricing, the competing treatments, and the unanswered questions that still fuel suspicion today.</p><p><strong>Follow the evidence. Follow the money. Then decide for yourself.</strong></p><p>Sources for this episode</p><p>The <strong>PALM Ebola trial</strong>, published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>, found the antibody therapies MAb114 and REGN-EB3 superior to the comparison treatments, and investigators stopped assigning new patients to the remdesivir and ZMapp groups after an interim analysis. <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1910993?utm_source=chatgpt.com">New England Journal of Medicine</a></p><p>NIH documented the pre-COVID scientific rationale: the drug showed activity against MERS in rhesus monkeys, and NIH explicitly said those results supported testing against the emerging novel coronavirus. <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/remdesivir-prevents-mers-coronavirus-disease-monkeys?utm_source=chatgpt.com">National Institutes of Health</a> NIH subsequently reported reduced clinical disease and lung damage in SARS-CoV-2-infected rhesus monkeys treated early with the antiviral. <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/antiviral-remdesivir-prevents-disease-progression-monkeys-covid-19?utm_source=chatgpt.com">National Institutes of Health</a></p><p>The first U.S. randomized controlled COVID treatment trial began in February 2020. <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins?utm_source=chatgpt.com">National Institutes of Health</a> The ACTT-1 results found faster recovery—approximately 10 days versus 15—and NIH emphasized recovery time as the principal demonstrated benefit. <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-shows-remdesivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19?utm_source=chatgpt.com">National Institutes of Health</a>