Breaking down the dirty of specific pharma companies: #3 Gilead…..***waiting for a Brunson SCOTUS update today.

Today *should* be the day we hear if the Brunson SCOTUS case has a decision on a hearing. The SCOTUS had their conference last Friday 2-17-23. Usually updates are posted the following Monday, but the national holiday delayed it. We should hear this morning if SCOTUS denied the case again, advanced it forward for a hearing, or if they made a decision without a hearing. Pray for wisdom, guidance, and perseverance for all the parties involved.

Onward we go with Gilead pharmaceuticals.

Today we discuss the pharma company Gilead.  When you go to their main page,

https://www.gilead.com

They are “striving together toward equity”.  Gilead is a new company, founded in 1987 and headquartered in California.  Which should come as no surprise, as you will read later they are heavily invested in HIV treatment and antiviral treatment. 1980s, California……Fauci’s playground during the discovery of AIDS and HIV……not a coincidence I am sure.  Gilead is not in the neuropsych field, so I don’t see Gilead in the hallways at work.  We do not appeal to their need to sell, as we do not use any of their products.  

Gilead is “Gilead is committed to advancing care for patients around the world by bringing forward medicines in areas of unmet medical need. We do this through internal research and development, as well as through collaborations with academic and industry partners.”

Prior to covid, GIlead was known as the makers of Tamiflu.  The antiviral medication that “promised to reduce your flu severity and duration of illness”.  The drug that was so expensive, that many prescriptions never got picked up due to price alone.  I always found it odd that we had a “symptom reduction” drug for the flu when the whole reason for a flu shot was to prevent or LESSEN SYMPTOMS IF YOU CATCH THE FLU?”  I digress.  In 2004, during the Avian flu pandemic scare, Gilead Sciences' revenue from Tamiflu almost quadrupled to $44.6m as more than 60 national governments stockpiled the antiviral drug, though the firm had made a loss in 2003 before concern about the flu started. As stocks soared, US Defense Secretary and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld sold shares of the company, receiving more than $5 million in capital gains, while still maintaining up to $25m-worth of shares by the end of the year. Sales of Tamiflu almost quadrupled again in 2005, to $161.6m, during which time the share price tripled. A 2005 report showed that, in all, Rumsfeld owned shares worth up to $95.9m, from which he got an income of up to $13mil.  Wow.  Are we supposed to be surprised that a sudden flu scare popped up when Tamiflu hit the market and the government made millions in stock prices from that?  Remember……nothing is a coincidence.  

They are also one of the biggest pharma companies of HIV medications including anti-virals to prevent contracting HIV, a med that is very popular in the gay community, and community health agencies try very hard to make sure every gay male is on the, as my gay best friend calls it, the “anti aids pill”.  They have clinics specifically devoted to just prescribing Truvada to gay men as an HIV prevention.  Gilead is big into HIV and oncology medications.  As I said above, founded in the 80’s in California, during the peak of the HIV/AIDS discovery and treatment production?  Definitely not suspect at all.  They have branched out into treatment of Hepatitis B&C now as well.  They do love them some antiviral medications!!!

They have had some scandal: The company continued its growth in the 2010s, but came under heavy scrutiny over its business practices, including extremely high pricing of drugs such as Sovaldi and Truvada (the HIV prevention pill) in the United States relative to production cost and cost in the developing world. They were price gouging in the US but not in other countries. 

What is most interesting is that there is ZERO mention in many historical accounts of this company of that pesky little drug called Remdesivir, or Veklury.  Gilead makes the drug. During Covid,  Gilead’s claim to fame is Veklury.  You know this drug well.  It is also called Remdesivir.  They are also making an antiviral pill for covid known as BIRCH https://www.gilead.com/science-and-medicine/pipeline#Emerging%20Viruses (which I suspect is something similar to Paxlovid, and would align with their Tamiflu product quite nicely.  Note my sarcasm.). Of other interesting note, RIGHT BEFORE COVID, in 2019, the U.S. Department of HHS announced that Gilead Sciences will donate Truvada, the only drug approved to prevent infection with H.I.V., for free to 200,000 patients annually for 11 years. On December 3, 2019, HHS explained how the government would distribute the donated drugs. HHS Secretary Alex Azar explained that the U.S. government will pay Gilead $200 per bottle for 30 pills for costs associated with getting the drug from factories into the eventual hands of patients.  That is an interesting event right before Covid was announced. 

Another interesting covid factoid: On August 11, 2021, U.S. Senator Rand Paul disclosed that his wife Kelley Paul had purchased a stake in Gilead Sciences on February 26, 2020.  Hmmm.  Interesting. 

So focusing on Remdesivir or Veklury.  This drug may have singlehandedly killed more people than any other treatment during covid.  Well, aside from the ventilator and midazolam carnage in the early days of covid.  Probably fair to say they were both the tag team of most lethal options during covid.  https://www.science.org/content/article/very-very-bad-look-remdesivir-first-fda-approved-covid-19-drug

In October 2020, the European Union and the United States inked deals with Gilead, worth BILLIONS of dollars, to provide Remdesivir to covid patients.  This decision baffled some scientists, who have closely watched the clinical trials of remdesivir unfold over the past 6 months—and who have many questions about remdesivir's worth. At best, one large, well-designed study found remdesivir modestly reduced the time to recover from COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with severe illness. A few smaller studies found no impact of treatment on the disease whatsoever. Then, on 15 October—in this month's decidedly unfavorable news for Gilead—The World Health Organization's (WHO's) Solidarity trial showed that remdesivir does not reduce mortality or the time COVID-19 patients take to recover.  Ummm, what is that?  Remdesivir does no good?  BUT THE SAME MONTH A HUGE CONTRACT WAS SIGNED TO USE REMDESIVIR!!!!  

Questions have also arisen about the potential of remdesivir to do harm. WHO has a regular overview of possible adverse drug events related to COVID-19 treatments. In late August 2020 it noted a disproportionately high number of reports of liver and kidney problems in patients receiving remdesivir compared with patients receiving other drugs for COVID-19. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also announced this month that its safety committee had started a review to assess reports of acute kidney injuries in some patients taking remdesivir.  In November 2020, just a month after the US and the European Union inked their deals with Remdesivir/Gilead, this article hit on NBC (I was shocked it was on mainstream media) https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/remdesivir-shouldn-t-be-used-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-who-n1248320

“The antiviral remdesivir should not be used as treatment for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, the World Health Organization said Thursday, only a month after the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug to treat patients over age 12 who are hospitalized with Covid-19. Remdesivir, also known as Veklury, and the steroid dexamethasone are the only drugs authorized to treat Covid-19 patients. But a recent massive global study of remdesivir's effectiveness, run by the WHO, showed that remdesivir had little or no impact on hospitalized patients, contradicting previous trials.

"Remdesivir has no meaningful effect on mortality or on other important outcomes for patients, such as the need for mechanical ventilation or time to clinical improvement," experts from the WHO Guideline Development Group wrote in a statement. The review was published in The BMJ, a medical journal.”

Yet we continued to push that Remdesivir was the holy grail of treatment, and patients received Remdesivir for more than a YEAR after this came out.  

Remdesivir or Veklury was a “repurposed drug” that had failed clinical trial for use in Ebola, and was dusted off and tried again for covid.  What should make everyone very angry is that ANY OTHER DRUG that was suggested for off label or repurposed use during covid was bad mouthed, trashed, and banned.  Only Remdesivir was allowed.  And it failed miserably in Ebola trials.  We don’t know how many people died from liver and kidney failure with Ebola, because the mortality rate of that illness is so high.  But we do know the incidence of kidney injury and need for dialysis on patients who took Remdesivir for covid.  A nurse colleague who worked in a covid unit said over 80% of patients who got Remdesivir in the hospital ended up on dialysis due to acute kidney injury.  They blamed it on the covid of course.  Not the billion dollar drug that Gilead had a deal with the FDA for approval for use during covid.  I don’t think we know the true death toll of Remdesivir yet.  Some died fast, others lingered with kidney and liver problems and died within months, and others are still battling out the injuries from Remdesivir.  That story is still unfolding. 

On a side note…..I have wondered what the shady may be with Truvada as well.  Does it act as an immunosuppressant and is that why they really want every gay male taking it?  What happened when you gave a covid vaccine with that drug?  What about if you got covid while taking that drug?  Something never smelled right about that drug, but I need to do more digging there.