If only we had a couple of three letter government agencies that had billions in funding and the ability to hire the best and brightest to build safe and effective drugs. What we got was incompetent clown shows dedicated to one thing and one thing only, Big Pharma profits. Geezus.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sis...vid-drug-produces-new-virus-mutations-n528124

I don’t think this is quite the result – nor the publicity – Merck was looking for.
The Merck drug molnupiravir (brand name: Lagevrio) was apparently the first COVID oral anti-viral authorized anywhere. Here in the U.S., it received an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in December of 2021 that was just renewed this month. It is not – I repeat NOT – FDA approved.
People were clamoring for COVID therapeutics and were pretty damn angry that none had been developed with all the research. The choices were extreme: become so ill one supposedly required intubation (basically a death sentence) or a pre-virus vaccination, with nothing in between. So the scramble to get a pill, any pill, was on.
There were serious concerns voiced about the molnupiravir’s effectiveness and inner workings from the beginning, but those were, well, basically ignored in the headlong rush to get a COVID anti-viral out the door.
…“It’s very clear that viable mutant viruses can survive [molnupiravir treatment] and compete [with existing variants],” says virologist William Haseltine, chair of ACCESS Health International, who has repeatedly raised concerns about the drug. “I think we are courting disaster.” But a Merck spokesperson disputes that the drug has led to the emergence of widely circulating variants, and some researchers downplayed the significance of molnupiravir-caused mutations. “Right now, it’s much ado about nothing,” says Raymond Schinazi, a medicinal chemist at the Emory University School of Medicine, noting that with SARS-CoV-2 infecting millions of people worldwide, the virus is naturally mutating at a fast clip.
…From the start, however, Haseltine and others worried about the drug’s mechanism, which involves introducing so many mutations into the viral genome that it can no longer reproduce. One concern was that the drug might mutate not just the coronavirus, but the DNA of people receiving it—a side effect that has not been seen so far. Another was that mutated virus would survive and propagate—and perhaps turn out to be more transmissible or virulent than before. Before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the drug, a Merck spokesperson called the worry “an interesting hypothetical concern.”
A big enough concern that more than one renowned scientist was frantically waving big red flags, and pointing out HELLO! The drug doesn’t even work – why are we taking such a risk?
…Some experts immediately flagged the potential for the drug to cause worrying mutations when it first made headlines in late-2021.
Dr Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, was among those experts – warning against the drug’s use last year.
He told DailyMail.com Thursday: ‘Use of molnupiravir in any nation will contribute to the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2.
‘In view of the poor – essentially zero–efficacy of molnupiravir against SARS-CoV-2, and in view of the high mutagenic activity of molnupiravir and its contribution to the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, it is disturbing that molnupiravir is being used anywhere, at any time, for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2.’
Dr William Haseltine, known as one of the world’s leading experts in human genome analysis, warned in late 2021 the way the drug worked opened the door to danger.
‘You are putting a drug into circulation that is a potent mutagen at a time when we are deeply concerned about new variants,’ he told Forbes.
He added: ‘I can’t imagine doing anything more dangerous.
‘If I were trying to create a new and more dangerous virus in humans, I would feed a subclinical dose [of molnupiravir] to people infected,’ he continued.