Problems With Paxlovid

A CDC health advisory warns the drug doesn't work

“She has COVID but she’s taking Paxlovid, and she said it’s helping,” a friend texted me the other day, referring to her mom who’s 85 years old. I bit my tongue. My friend and her mom have both been vaccinated and double boosted. Four vaccines. And they’ve also followed the government’s orders since Day 1: Staying inside, wearing masks, attending no in-person gatherings, cancelling family events … the whole shebang.

I knew it would only cost me our friendship to say something, no matter how gently, about how, um, the vaccines her family has put so much faith in don’t seem to be working and, um, how Paxlovid may actually make things worse.

Rebound Reports

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, is speaking up. On May 24, the CDC warned that people with COVID-19 who take Paxlovid may experience what they’re calling “a rebound case of COVID” two to eight days after their symptoms initially clear up.

Medical doctors are also reporting seeing a “troubling trend” of COVID-19 reemergence in their patients who have taken Paxlovid. In addition, there are thousands of anecdotal complaints about post-Paxlovid reinfection on social media, as well as in diverse mainstream news outlets, from NPR to NBC.

And now the feds are finally weighing in with this official CDC HEALTH ADVISORY (caps are theirs), which you can read in its entirety in PDF form on-line.

So What Is Paxlovid Anyway?

Paxlovid is a product made by Pfizer, the same company that is earning hundreds of millions of dollars and minting billionaires right and left, thanks to their highly effective highly profitable mRNA vaccine.

It’s the brand name for prescription-only experimental medication designed to help mitigate the symptoms of COVID-19.

(Pfizer’s really raking it in, aren’t they? They are brilliant. First they make a vaccine that doesn’t work but they manage to convince the public it is “safe and effective.” Then they get authorization to market and sell a prescription medication to mitigate the symptoms of … wait for it … the very same illness the vaccine they made that doesn’t work was supposed to prevent.)

This antiviral treatment consists of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir tablets. It is highly experimental and was approved under an Emergency Use Authorization, which means it was rushed to market without adequate testing. (As a reminder, EUA is a tool the Food and Drug Administration can use to expedite medical products, including vaccines and prescription medications, during a public health emergency.)

The Pfizer pop-up on their website explains:

The FDA has authorized the emergency use of PAXLOVID, an investigational medicine, for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and children (12 years of age and older weighing at least 88 pounds [40 kg]) with a positive test for the virus that causes COVID-19, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death, under an EUA.

​​​​​​​PAXLOVID is investigational because it is still being studied. There is limited information about the safety and effectiveness of using PAXLOVID to treat people with mild-to-moderate COVID‑19.

What’s the Problem With Paxlovid?

A new study, available as a pre-print (which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed), has found that people who take Paxlovid not only can get re-infected with the virus just a few days after their symptoms clear up, but they are also contagious enough to spread it to other people.

Should I write that again in case you were reading too quickly? People who take Paxlovid and clear the symptoms of COVID then get COVID symptoms again, which they can spread to friends and family.

In the ten people in this study who contracted COVID just after taking Paxlovid, two of them—one symptomatic and one asymptomatic—spread the virus to family members.

In other words, Paxlovid is an utter failure.

In a sane world, we wouldn’t be talking about “Paxlovid rebound,” which is just a fancy way of saying “Paxlovid does not work.”

In a sane world, the CDC and other regulatory bodies would immediately withdraw the EUA for this treatment. Because it’s a bogus remedy that doesn’t worked that was rushed to market to line the pockets of Big Pharma to the tune of $22 billion, according to FiercePharma.

Mary Talley Bowden, M.D., is a Stanford-education physician who has treated nearly 4,000 patients with COVID-19.

According to one of Bowden’s recent tweets:

“Reminder… Paxlovid - 32 drug interactions (including statins), hard on the kidneys, increased risk of rebound infection, poorly tolerated due to metallic taste, contains HIV drug, costs $530.”

What Can You Use to Treat COVID-19 Instead?

The saddest thing about all of this COV-INGNORANCE-19 is that if otherwise smart people would put their brains back inside their heads, instead of parking them at the alter of authority, they would realize that, especially now that it is becoming endemic, coronavirus is akin to a cold, with usually mild symptoms.

If you get this iteration of COVID and you stay in bed, drink lots of filtered water and delicious chicken soup (or vegetable soup if you’re a vegetarian), throw in some freshly squeezed organic orange and lemon juice, you are going to be just fine.

But COVID-19 is also highly treatable using natural remedies. And there are allopathic medical protocols that have been widely tested that also work, in the unlikely event that you have a more severe case.

What about my friend’s 85-year-old mom? I don’t know how she’s doing and, honestly, I’m a little afraid to ask. I do know that she’s also been suffering from kidney disease.

According to Pfizer’s prescribing information, that raises safety concerns that she should discuss with her doctor. I wonder if said doctor mentioned to her that Paxlovid may be counter indicated if you have kidney disease. Somehow I doubt it.

Wanna hang around this Substack for a little while longer?

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• Or you might like this post about why it’s almost always best to let a fever burn.

• This one’s really sad, but if you haven’t read it yet, you need to know what happened to Zara.

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist, contributing writer at The Epoch Times, and a sought-after speaker. Meet her in person at the NEXT STEPS Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on June 3 and 4, 2022.