⚠️NEED TRIALS: Dr. Kalil, who has decades of experience grappling with use—and misuse—of experimental drugs, has rarely been more frustrated. “Many drugs we believed were fantastic ended up killing people. It is so hard to keep explaining that.” #COVID19 nytimes.com/2020/04/09/hea…
2) “Dr. Kalil is haunted by memories of the Ebola outbreak in Africa. Then, too, doctors could not wait for evidence, and untested drugs were given to suffering Ebola patients by optimistic MDs w/ noble intentions. In the long run, none of drugs was ever approved in US.” #COVID19
3) “Dr. Kalil also lamented publication of case studies in prestigious med journals of single patients. “Publishing a single case report of an experimental drug as an original article in a high-impact journal during an outbreak is akin to sensationalist news,” he said. #COVID19
4) “Dr. Kalil is running a so-called adaptive trial. Researchers start by comparing an experimental drug — in this case, remdesivir — to the placebo. After a comparatively short period of time, they peek at the data. If patients taking remdesivir are faring better...”
5) ...”than those taking the placebo, the study will move on to second phase in which another drug is tested against remdesivir, which becomes the trial’s control. The point is to find something that shows some efficacy quickly, and there is no specific stopping point.” #COVID19
6) “If a drug were to bring the mortality rate to zero, of course, the trial would end abruptly and that drug would become the standard of care. If a drug were shown to halve the mortality rate, however, the question gets trickier.”
7) “Is that good enough?” Dr. Kalil wondered. He declined to say which drugs are in line for testing after remdesivir, concerned that he might set off another wave of demand for unproven drugs.
8) Dr. Kalil is voluble, lean and energetic, an unabashed patriot whose family emigrated from Brazil decades ago. He can be confrontational, and has squared off w/ leading scientists when he feels their trts cannot be justified by scientific evidence. He has run🏃in 22 marathons!
