Antivirals hitting the market is a good thing and Campbell is as competent a reviewer that is also speaking publicly that I'm personally aware of. Effective anti-virials have the potential of stopping the pandemic (what remains of it) cold in it's tracks.
There does remain some unanswered questions however as to why a widespread antiviral rollout didn't happen nearer to the outset of the pandemic. It's not as if pharmacology scientists and research oriented clinicians with experience from previous pandemics weren't already aware of the potential of antivirals. What the effective antivirals do when used in early stages of symptomatic infection is prevent the majority of hospitalizations and deaths. When not sick enough for hospitalization one rides it out at home, with relative ease.
And there's one antiviral in particular which has been shown in hundreds of clinical trials from around the world to be very effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths, but was demonized by BigP (who controls the narrative) apparently because it is off patent, very cheap, and widely available. These studies are independent (not paid for by for profit sponsors) and all over the internet, but you wouldn't know it, a sign of how effective the censorship campaign has been.
Studies of studies show where any kind of benefit (monetary or professional) accrues to the sponsors and/or authors, studies are not to be trusted. The problem of course is sponsors have motive and means, and in normal cases no one else is interested. But a pandemic is different, the world is interested. And in the case of this pandemic clinical results from physicians using best judgement for treatment with antivirals were so good that hundreds of independent studies were mounted.
Here's a brief paper reviewing some of those studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7577703/
This really underlines that we have a huge problem in for profit development of pharmaceuticals. I'm in favor of capitalism and know the arguments for and against, but there are clearly cases where the public good is at stake where profit should take a back seat.
We desperately need to get the egregious profit out of pharmacology. How soon could that happen? Doesn't look promising really, between wall street and BigP all parties down the line are riding this gravy train, and the health of the population is diminished considerably.
The good news is on a grass roots level we are waking up and taking control of our health into our own hands. Paleos and vegans alike have realized the huge benefits of a whole foods only diet and an active life style. And we can vote with our dollars.
Here's the Campbell piece: "Highly effective new antiviral"
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