Ask a Pharmaceutical Researcher anything

58 Questions

Last Answer on October 29, 2020

What do you think of meth?

Asked by Sammy over 3 years ago

I answered a related question 7 years ago. Find it above and see if it answers your question.

What type of COVID-19 test do you think is the most effective? There I know is the spit, blood, nose swab, questioners, and I assume probably a few others. What do you think?

Asked by Randall over 3 years ago

This is complicated and not really a pharma question. More important than which body part is sampled is what exactly is being measured with each type of test and the reason why you seek testing. If you think you've been exposed wait a couple of days and get the PCR test (nose swab). It is sensitive enough to pick up the virus even before you become infectious to others, sick or asymptomatic. Unfortunately, test results arrive several days later so quarantine until then and hope for a negative. Antigen test - this is the best test if you're actually feeling sick. It's less sensitive than PCR, but if you're truly sick with COVID it will tell you in less than an hour. A rapid, inexpensive, self test based on this technology would be a game changer. Imagine, for example, testing every kid every morning before school. Antibody test - this blood test detects anti-COVID antibodies. A positive indicates that you've had the disease (or in the future, the vaccine). It's not useful for determining if you're sick or infectious because it remains positive long after recovery. It's useful for identifying persons suitable for convalescent plasma donation and possibly indicates some measure of immunity to reinfection.

189 Votes

What do you think are good ways to fight the opioid epidemic?

Asked by Greg over 3 years ago

Opioids have been around for a very long time. Their usages, i.e. pain relief and pleasure, historically have not changed. There always have been overdose deaths, sad as they were, but what’s different today is the sheer number of them. The causative issues that have been identified are the bloated and reckless supply chain of pharmaceutical grade pills and the incorporation of deadly fentanyl into the street drugs. There are no simple solutions. Government action against irresponsible manufacturers and distributers, tighter regulation of prescriptions, and the availability of rescue medicines in the field, while sensible, have actually only reduced deaths by a few percent. Opioids are very effective for pain relief, but because they are much less expensive than more sophisticated medical procedures like pain management and surgery, patients opt for them and are thus at risk of developing addiction, advancing from relief to pleasure to danger. One solution to that might be for insurance companies to fully cover non-drug medical intervention and thus lower the cost barrier to safe care. It’s a win-win. Patients live and companies continue to receive their premiums. I see no remedy for the dangers of illicit opiates short of the progressive idea of establishing clinics where addicts are maintained with clean materials. Perhaps the opioid blockers could be available to addicts to carry around themselves rather than restricting their use to first responders and ERs. Hopefully, one day science may discover the molecular basis for addiction and invent a way to control it.

189 Votes

When will we realistically have a COVID-19 vaccines?

Asked by Michael over 3 years ago

First there's development, then testing, then approval, then manufacture, then distribution and then WE have it. For COVID-19 most are still in development and a handful are now in testing with a few in late stage testing. Normally these steps would take a couple of years, but acceleration has been inserted in a couple of places, i.e. government funding of development, political pressure on approval (maybe), and manufacture on spec. These things could shave off several months. Also, if a vaccine works very well, interim analysis may reveal significant efficacy and safety and thus early approval. There are still unresolved hurdles to distribution and recipient selection. I think most folks should not expect to get it until next year. Early I hope.

187 Votes

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Have you seen a lot of suspicious deaths in your line of work?

Asked by Jessie over 3 years ago

No I haven't. I never worked with patients nor am I aware of any one dying from an adverse event while on a drug that I was involved in developing.

187 Votes

What type of medicine would you think is the most fraudulent?

Asked by Garett over 3 years ago

I don’t know what you mean by fraudulent. Is it the most counterfeited, the most unauthorized generic, or the one that I would say does not perform as claimed? Frankly, I don’t have an answer for any of these. My pet peeve is the endless promotion of herbals, and formulations that promise better memory, vision, prostate health, weight loss, etc. I don’t believe their ‘clinical’ evidence.

185 Votes

What do you think of this video?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HeC0tHZDX7dk/

Asked by Kathleen over 3 years ago

I would say that if these physicians' claims of success in treating COVID-19 patients are accurate then their methods should, indeed, be adopted by others. Having said that, their belief that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are the keys to positive outcomes is dubious. There's more to patient care than drugs. Bona fide, well-controlled clinical studies have shown these two to be of no benefit. I'm a little on the fence, however, about zinc. Zinc has a number of roles in biology. The one I'm thinking of is its interaction with protein which can influence tertiary structure (shape) and in so doing interfere with virus binding. As you probably know, zinc is purported to be a remedy for the common cold. Who knows? Maybe there's something there.

182 Votes