Alternative facts

Merck, Pfizer COVID-19 Antivirals Different From Ivermectin. Link for Richard,

https://twitter.com/richjsimmonds

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/10/scicheck-merck-pfizer-covid-19-antivirals-different-from-ivermectin/?fbclid=IwAR2YgSVzorIwnzLmtNfyBUXInsbuEw3bHf6ZVhyDlNtXp11SPL1orXz_bSs

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SciCheck Digest

The pills are very different from the antiparasitic medication ivermectin,

Dubbed PF-07321332, the investigational medication is a protease inhibitor that blocks a key enzyme the SARS-CoV-2 virus needs to replicate itself.

Molnupiravir

While the results have not been published or peer-reviewed, they were compelling enough for the trial’s independent Data Monitoring Committee to recommend an early halt to recruitment into the study.

Food and Drug Administration, an advisory committee to discuss the application on Nov. 30.

Molnupiravir is a nucleoside analog — a drug that messes up viral replication by tricking the virus into using the processed medication as one of its building blocks for its genetic code.

This is what’s known as “error catastrophe,” using a mechanism called “lethal mutagenesis.”

Although both drugs are novel, with news of these developments, people on social media are spreading the false notion that the pills are the same or “suspiciously similar” to ivermectin

Some iterations of the claim incorrectly posit that Pfizer’s drug is “based on” ivermectin and that the two are essentially the same because both are protease inhibitors

— something that has not been established, and even if true, doesn’t mean the drugs are similar,

That paper, (computational modeling paper published by some Indian scientists in March)

however, does not show that ivermectin acts as a protease inhibitor against SARS-CoV-2 through any sort of biological experiment — it only proposes the possibility based on computer simulations.

Drugs Shown to Inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19

Open Access

Disease: Comparative Basic and Clinical Pharmacology of

Molnupiravir and Ivermectin

https://austinpublishinggroup.com/pharmacology-therapeutics/fulltext/ajpt-v9-id1149.pdf