by mvzvm on 4/26/21, 9:45 PM with 491 comments
by gnicholas on 4/26/21, 10:46 PM
I have wondered if the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to some results, like extermination of the common cold, that humans would look back on and say that it was a net benefit. Something along the lines of, "yes, 4 million people died, but in fighting COVID-19 we created highly-effective therapeutics for the flu and common cold. Over the following 10 years, these inventions saved 4 million lives and saved 15 million days of lost work/school".
It's hard to think about these things as we are going through the pandemic, but hopefully there will be some good that comes of it. (Of course, it's also possible that by thinking we've 'cured' the common cold, we will open ourselves up to a once-a-century pandemic, where millions are wiped out by what used to just be a common cold.)
by rossdavidh on 4/26/21, 11:40 PM
The rest of us should totally not get too excited. Many drugs go into phase 1. Few come out. There are more phases after that. Tamiflu got through all of that and still hasn't been a game-changer for something that kills tens of thousands in the U.S.A. alone every year.
But, hey, you have to take a lot of shots on goal before you get one, so I'm glad they're going after it with a sense of urgency.
by cmckn on 4/26/21, 10:28 PM
by mvzvm on 4/26/21, 9:45 PM
by ascorbic on 4/27/21, 5:23 AM
by johnchristopher on 4/26/21, 10:31 PM
by cwkoss on 4/26/21, 11:40 PM
With the expense of testing being so huge, it seems like there would be huge economic incentive to be able to fail fast.
I wonder what percentage of pharma researchers are bold (and unmonitored) enough to test their creations on themselves - based on the chemists I've met, it almost certainly must be nonzero...
by scoopertrooper on 4/26/21, 10:57 PM
Let's not get too excited...
by swader999 on 4/26/21, 10:27 PM
by Camillo on 4/27/21, 2:50 AM
Would be pretty cool if we had a pill that was, say, 20% more effective and 300 times more expensive.
by sradman on 4/26/21, 10:40 PM
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
by CyberRabbi on 4/26/21, 11:38 PM
I love journalism because I often learn new words to improve my communication at work. “Keeping schtum” is not an idiom I’ve ever heard before but I will certainly consider using it with my colleagues.
by aurizon on 4/27/21, 12:56 AM
by The_rationalist on 4/27/21, 12:10 AM
by mromanuk on 4/27/21, 12:50 PM
by dylan604 on 4/26/21, 10:30 PM
A phrase I was totally unfamiliar with, and not really sure of what it means in context. Non recreational drug users? Non-McDonalds eaters? Only eats nonGMO, organic foods? Bathes regularly?
by sabersei2 on 4/29/21, 12:17 PM
by michaeltimo on 4/27/21, 3:49 PM
by thedeepdive on 4/27/21, 2:28 AM
by gnicholas on 4/26/21, 10:32 PM
Quite some details! Presumably this part of the testing is to see if large amounts of fat shouldn't be consumed along with the pill.
by adamrezich on 4/27/21, 5:47 AM
by brightball on 4/26/21, 11:16 PM
by forgingahead on 4/27/21, 3:01 AM
by thewileyone on 4/27/21, 4:31 AM
Remember, there's no value to Pfizer to cure things like the common cold.
by ck2 on 4/27/21, 1:31 AM
Well there's no way to convince the disbelievers but Ivermectin is already a cure for covid, weak and imperfect but it definitely does something. I know and believe only because it personally saved me from death's door.
Don't try mentioning this on twitter or facebook though, you'll get your account blocked/banned.
Funding for a more targeted and powerful cure definitely should happen but there is something really really weird in life when you see something being buried that you know is different than the official stroy.
Doesn't help that every quack is coming out of the woodwork to try to cash in on it somehow, not by profit from the drug itself but their only 15 minutes of "fame". But there has to be someway to fix that signal-to-noise ratio when it comes to saving people's lives.
by nyolfen on 4/26/21, 11:41 PM