Chapter 1
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REPURPOSED DRUGS FOR COVID-19
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What exactly is a repurposed drug?
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Great question.
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The simple answer is that a repurposed drug means using of any FDA-approved drug for an off-label purpose. Off-label use means prescribing a medication for another purpose other than its approved one. For example, pediatricians use antibiotics off-label some 20% of the time.Ā
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Tricyclic antidepressants are used every day for chronic pain, antipsychotics are used for dementia, and anti-seizure medications are used to treat fibromyalgia. Without off-label use, millions of patients could not receive adequate treatment. Colchicine, an effective gout treatment, was used 50 years before any FDA approval or testing was done. Without the off-label use of this drug, millions would have suffered for decades.
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Off-label use allows doctors to help patients with conditions that have not gone through billions of dollars of Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III FDA testing, as well as jumping through regulatory and political hoops to get FDA approval.Ā
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āMany people may be surprised to know that the FDA regulates drug approval, not drug prescribing, and ... doctors are free to prescribe a drug for any [reason they think is medically appropriate],ā says G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS, a medical ethics advocate and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "Off-label use is so common, that virtually every drug is used off-label in some circumstances."
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So, when it comes to terminal cancer, let's say, where someone will likely be dead in one year with the standard approved treatment of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, off-label use prescribed by your doctor, can in some cases save your life.
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An excellent example is that of Dr. Gregory Riggins and his mice. When his mice with brain cancer got pinworms, he treated them with mebendazole, an approved pinworm drug. The mice were cured of pinworms and miraculously also their cancers.
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Soon the cancer-treating properties of mebendazole surfaced and many began taking the pinworm treatment for their own cancers.
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Such bypassing the FDA is legal as Dr. Alexander has pointed out. However, let us mention that it is frowned upon by oncologists and leading government-funded scientists.
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They don't much care when a pediatrician treats an ear infection with an off-label antibiotic. No one loses any money over that. But when you start treating terminal cancer off-label, eyebrows will be raised.
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If cancer treatment with repurposed drugs raises eyebrows, the mere suggestion of off-label use of drugs to treat coronavirus causes heart-stopping political debates, and indeed exactly the types of ad hominem attacks you have witnessed all over the news about that dirty word:
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Hydroxychloroquine.
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Hydroxychloroquine, once the darling of Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis patients for decades, mysteriously became a violent killer overnight. However, just as mysteriously, the FDA has not banned its use for Lupus, and no attorneys are advertising class action lawsuits against it. It only becomes dangerous - and unprofitable for some - if you wished to use it off-label for COVID.
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Hmmm.
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If you or a loved one have cancer, you will want to learn all you can about The Repurposed Drug Revolution.
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If you or a loved one are worried about Coronavirus, this is the most important book you may ever read.
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Questions & Answers about Repurposed Drugs
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Q: Why would the FDA, CDC, WHO, NHS and other agencies that are charged to protect our health be against repurposed drugs if they could save us from cancer or COVID-19. You would think that they would be the first to publicize and promote them if they truly were effective, correct?
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A: No
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Q: What are repurposed drugs?
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A: Drugs FDA-approved for one purpose that are prescribed off-label for another.
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Q: Are there any repurposed drugs for COVID?
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A: Depends on who you talk to. FDA says no. Most docs say yes.
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Q: What are examples of repurposed drugs?
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A. Anti-depressants are used every day to treat chronic pain. Antibiotics are used every day by pediatricians to treat ear infections. Antipsychotics are used to treat dementia.
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Q: Why is the FDA against the use of repurposed drugs?Ā
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A: The official reason is that without FDA approval, the drugs either may not work, or they may be dangerous. The unofficial reason is that billions of dollars in testing: Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III trials are required to get that stamp of approval. And there is money to be made by many players, including Big Pharma, the FDA, the NIH, and the middlemen.
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Q: What is the greatest argument by physicians for the use of repurposed drugs without FDA approval.
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A: Doctors are trained to use all drugs scientifically based upon their judgment even without FDA approval. More than 20% of all drugs are used off-label without FDA approval in cancer, for infections, and when FDA-approved drugs do not exist, as in the coronavirus.
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Q: What are examples of non-FDA approved drugs that can help?
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A: Dr. Riggins found that his mice with brain tumors, when treated for pinworms, with a deworming drug, mysteriously got cured of their brain cancers. Riggins began researching Mebendazole, the pinworm drug and found that it had powerful anti-cancer effects by blocking microtubule formation in cancer cells. Soon doctors began prescribing this drug for patients with terminal cancer, with positive results much to the dismay of the FDA.Ā
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Q: What are examples of repurposed drugs for use against the coronavirus?Ā
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A: Kaletra, an HIV drug made up of Lopinavir/Ritonavir, has shown potent effects against the first coronavirus, SARS CoV-1. It has also shown positive results against the novel coronavirus, SARS CoV-2. Other repurposed drugs have been used effectively in other countries: Camostat, Favipiravir, and Hydroxychloroquine. Most recently, Ivermectin has shown the most powerful and consistent benefits when used to prevent and treat COVID-19. Throughout all stages of the disease, the data from over 50 studies has shown Ivermectin to demonstrate consistent and substantial reductions in death.
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Q: Why is the FDA against the use of these drugs?
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A: The official answer is that the studies do not support their use. The unofficial reason is that repurposed drugs make little money. They are off-patent, meaning they can make very little money. They were branded to make money off their original purposed. Now they are cheap and generic, and anyone can make them. The FDA much prefers drugs like Remdesivir as it is not repurposed. It has not been FDA approved for general widespread use for anything before, so it can and will be patented and is expensive.Ā
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Q: Can repurposed drugs be life-saving?
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A: Absolutely.
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Q: What must I know about repurposed drugs?
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A: Repurposed drugs historically have been opposed whenever they have been found to be effective. They are unprofitable because they are no longer on patent. As an example, the drug Wellbutrin XL oral tablet, extended release carries a cost of $ 1,665.16 according to drugs.com.
This would be the patented versionās price for thirty tablets or a one-month supply. The generic version of the drug, the off-patent price for bupropion oral extended release for thirty tablets averages just $ 34.75 for a one-month supply.
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In this case, the generic drug is 98% cheaper than the branded or patented version. This is the reason repurposed drugs will never be approved so long as pharmaceutical companies enjoy a cozy relationship with the agencies that regulate them and have the power to approve these drugs.
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Q: If Ivermectin is already proven so effective, why not just use it around the world in the billions of doses right now and end the Pandemic?
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A: Ivermectin does not make anyone real money as it costs only pennies to make: 100 pills can be made for around $ 2.40, and it can be purchased in the Dominican Republic for 83 cents a pill. Any pharmaceutical manufacturer can produce it in bulk by the millions of tablets in less than one week.
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But the real problem is this: According to Dr. Pierre Kory of the FLCCC Alliance, any admission that Ivermectin works could harm the vaccine effort, and therein lies the rub. The vaccine investment is far too large to endanger. Currently the vaccines are approved only as āEmergency Use Authorizationā meaning no effective alternative exists. If Ivermectin were shown effective and approved as standard therapy for COVID, āthat would kneecap the entire global vaccine policy around the worldā in the words of Dr. Pierre Kory.
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The vaccine industry is already counting their profits to be had in the coming years. An announcement was recently made that a third āboosterā vaccine shot may be necessary in six months. And this may be followed by annual COVID (compulsory) vaccinations. Multiply this by a few billion people each go around, and you may begin to see precisely why the world is being misled.
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Chapter 2
THE EARLY BRAVE PIONEERS OF REPURPOSED COVID DRUGS
Shortly after the pandemic began, in late February or early March of 2020, many doctors began to improvise. Repurposing existing drugs was logical, and as I also discovered, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), seemed like the best candidate. Thus, I scoured the available data on HCQās effectiveness against SARS-CoV-1, the close relative to SARS-CoV-2. And HCQ had a dramatic effect, at least in the lab, against it.
Dr. Fareed, a former virologist at the NIH, and acclaimed AIDS pioneer, now working in the small town o...