COVID-19 vaccines: 4 things to know

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Other treatments

In another portion of the interview that aired Monday, Attkisson asked Dye to discuss "some promising therapies that are now being used" to treat coronavirus.

Dye spoke favorably of steroid treatments, claiming that they "seem to have great effects."

According to Dye, the treatments "are basically amping up your immune system to be able to control the virus better."

Last October, the FDA gave approval for the use of the drug remdesivir, sold under the brand name Veklury, in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older and weighing at least 88 pounds to treat COVID-19 requiring hospitalization.

According to Kaiser Health News, doctors prescribe remdesivir to about half of COVID patients in U.S. hospitals because there are no other FDA-approved treatment options.

Dye also mentioned the use of convalescent plasma — "where you take product from a person who has survived ... the infection" and has antibodies in their blood and then uses it as a treatment for someone who is infected with the virus.

There are also several clinical trials studying other potential treatments. Last October, the World Health Organization's Solidarity Trial published interim results that found four different treatments (remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon) "had little or no effect on overall mortality, initiation of ventilation and duration of hospital stay in hospitalized patients."

"So far, only corticosteroids have been proven effective against severe and critical COVID-19," WHO stated in an online update.

Dr. Pierre Kory, an associate professor of medicine at St. Luke's Aurora Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, appeared before a U.S. Senate committee in December to push Ivermectin as a treatment for coronavirus.

Ivermectin is approved in the U.S. in tablet form to treat parasitic worms and as a topical solution to treat external parasites for animals. However, it has not been approved for the treatment of COVID-19 in humans by the FDA or the National Institutes of Health.

"There is a drug that is proving to be of miraculous impact," Kory argued. "That is a scientific recommendation based on mountains of data that has emerged in the last three months."

"It basically obliterates transmission of this virus," he added. "We have evidence that Ivermectin is effective not only ... in the prevention. If you take it, you will not get sick."

Kory stated that the drug is "proving to be an immensely powerful, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory agent."

"It is critical for its use in this disease," he continued.

As he concluded his testimony, Kory asked the NIH to "review the data that we have compiled of all the emerging data" and implement Ivermectin as a treatment for coronavirus.

He expressed disappointment that the NIH, the FDA and the CDC for failing to set up a task force to "review repurposed drugs" as coronavirus treatments, instead opting to go with "novel and/or expensive, pharmaceutically-engineered drugs."

Last April, the FDA sent a letter to stakeholders stressing that the drug should not be used to treat COVID-19 in humans, stating that "additional testing is needed to determine whether ivermectin might be safe or effective to prevent or treat coronavirus or COVID-19."