Since Lockdown Sceptics reported on Sunday about the remarkable effectiveness of the common asthma treatment Budesonide against COVID-19 – cutting serious disease by 90% according to a study published in the Lancet – a new study has appeared underlining its effectiveness as a Covid treatment.
The first study was part of the STOIC trial at Oxford University and found that 10 of the 73 symptomatic Covid patients in the control group required urgent medical care (e.g. hospitalisation) compared to just one of the 73 symptomatic Covid patients who inhaled Budesonide twice a day. This translates to 87% effectiveness in preventing serious disease. One limitation of the study was that few of the participants were high risk or elderly, with an average age of 45; another was that it was small.
The new study is from the PRINCIPLE trial, also based at Oxford, and uses a larger group (751 using Budesonide, 1,028 in the control group), all of whom are either over 65 or over 50 with a risk-increasing underlying health condition. It found that Budesonide reduced a patient’s time to recovery by an average of three days (11 days compared to 14), and also reduced the chances of a relapse within 28 days.
Disappointingly, however, those who took Budesonide were only slightly less likely to be admitted to hospital – 8.5% compared with 10.3% – and this result was not statistically significant (though the trial is to be expanded which may address this issue).
Professor Richard Hobbs of Oxford University, who co-leads the trial, said: “For the first time we have high-quality evidence of an effective treatment that can be rolled out across the community for people who are at most risk of developing more severe illness from COVID-19. Unlike other proven treatments, Budesonide is effective as a treatment at home and during the early stages of the illness. This is a significant milestone for this pandemic and a major achievement for community-based research.”
On Monday, an alert was sent to the NHS saying the drug can now be used off-label for the treatment of COVID-19 for the over-65s and at-risk over-50s, the Telegraph reports.
This is good news. However, not everyone is convinced. The ‘Swiss Doctor’ notes that the trials have financial ties to Budesonide manufacturer AstraZeneca, and that the results are not as impressive as the newspaper reports might suggest. For example, they use “soft” rather than “hard” endpoints.
In both trials, Budesonide achieved no significant improvement in any “hard endpoint”: in the PRINCIPLE trial, there was no significant difference in hospitalisations, deaths, hospital assessment without admission, oxygen administration, and ICU admission. In the Oxford [STOIC] trial, there was no significant difference in the proportion of people and days with an oxygen saturation below 94%, PCR cycle threshold increase, and FluPRO-measured symptom resolution.
The “soft” endpoints were “self-reported recovery” in PRINCIPLE and “urgent care visits” in STOIC, of which only one patient was actually hospitalised and required oxygen.
The ‘Swiss Doctor’ does concede that there was some indication of benefit to the high-risk in the PRINCIPLE trial: hospitalisation/death risk was lower (8.5% vs 10.3%), oxygen requirement was lower (5.8% vs 8.4%), and ICU admission was lower (1.2% vs 2.2%). However, the trial will need to expand if these differences are to gain statistical significance.
The positive results for Budesonide are certainly welcome, as is the news that the NHS has been given the green light to prescribe it for high-risk groups. Though why not for the low risk under-65s as well? In the STOIC trial it cut the need for urgent care to close to zero in that group. Is that not a worthwhile medical intervention, particularly with all the worry about ‘long Covid’?
It’s fair to say that the 17% reduction in hospitalisation/death among the high risk is disappointing when compared to the impressive 87% reduction in urgent care among the low risk. But it’s still an improvement, and the other indicators – shorter recovery time, reduced need for oxygen and intensive care – are also encouraging.
I should add that what we’re really waiting for are high quality results on the highly promising Ivermectin that are deemed acceptable to the health regulators so that drug can become generally available. No rush, guys. Not like people are dying or anything.
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About time! This has been known since late last spring.
Better still would be approval of Ivermectin; one of the world’s safest licensed medicines that works for all age groups and as a prophylactic but that’s probably too much to ask as it would be game over for the jabs $$$$$
Better still would be approval of Ivermectin; one of the world’s safest licensed medicines that works for all age groups and as a prophylactic but that’s probably too much to ask as it would be game over for the jabs $$$$$
Here’s a great video on the subject alongside the importance of vitamin D
https://www.bitchute.com/video/hfzL5gUeQvxr/
Great video! Matter-of-fact and so, so scientifically sensible that it is music to my ears. Effective, tried and tested alternatives to the dodgy vaccines are out there for mere pennies!
‘….the 17% reduction in hospitalisation/death among the high risk is disappointing when compared to the impressive 87% reduction in urgent care among the low risk.’
That’s the whole confected ‘pandemic’ in a nutshell and, with budesonide (and ivermectin) it is over…..even though the dogs still bark.
17% reduction for the ‘high risk’ is astonishing. 87% reduction in urgent care for the low risk simply blows the entire ‘pandemic’ confection, and, with it, the crazy vaccination profligacy, clean out of the water…..
Also huge implications for treatment of the common cold/influenza……
Massive congratulations to all those involved in the trials and in raising the profile of this treatment.
More measured common-sense from Will.
Why, oh why, aren’t there more people like him in positions of executive responsibility?
Now that’s a question worth asking.
Ivermectin. If there is a known treatment for early onset COVID, EUA’s are illegal to issue in the USA.
If there is No effective early onset Tx for COVID the FDA can issue an EUA which is exactly what has been done, despite the incoming and ongoing ivermectin studies.
It looks like the adverse event reporting systems will eliminate these experimental biologicals, one by one. At the very least it will increase “vaccine hesitancy”.
That is why Ivermectin is not getting the approvals, it stops ’emergency use’ of vaccines to a dead stop. They automatically become unlawful if there is a proven generic alternative. Unfortunately its why Ivermectin will never get the approvals.
It’s a mistake to seize on anything as a ‘miracle cure’, and detailed and critical reporting is absolutely essential.
But what intrigues me about this report on a possible prophylactic is how it highlights the lack here of the same analytical process when vaccines are mentioned.
Unless I missed somewhere a mention of the absolute risk reduction (so far?) of the undertested concoctions.
It works…
And when you view the graphic below, added to the NHS COVID advice which was to stay at home for 14 days isolated with no interventions at all…
Guess what happened to the many unfortunates that trusted that advice to the letter?
So my dear LS friends waiting two weeks with unchecked SARS Cov 2 viral replication taking place in a human body is:
(a. criminally negligent advice
(b. a good way to cleanse the system of a demographic target
(c. perfect for accelerating an aggressive respiratory pandemic
Answers please to Hatt Mancock trusted affiliate of the GAVI/WHO/WEF
Just doing the detail on die Forze Industrialishe Revolutionz…
“waiting for … high quality results on the highly promising Ivermectin that are deemed acceptable to the health regulators”
We aren’t now waiting for high quality results, are we? Isn’t the “deemed acceptable” the critical barrier? We have “regulators” gung-ho about experimental injections, but turning their noses up at evidence of efficacy of a treatment established as very safe by its lengthy history of application to other conditions.