If many physicians are not aware of these therapies or are unsure of how patients qualify for them, where is the effective health care awareness and education campaign?
Unfortunately, in the United States, such medical assistance is often left to drug companies, which spend tens of billions of dollars each year marketing their drugs to doctors. This has led to heavily promoted drugs being prescribed even when cheaper, effective alternatives exist. However, Paxlovid has received an emergency use authorization, which means Pfizer can’t legally market it directly yet, so doctors aren’t even getting this kind of help. This leaves individual doctors to their own devices to keep up with new drugs and treatments, even in a pandemic and even when the drug is potentially life-saving.
Also, it is not so easy to make an appointment with the regular doctor on the same day, even for those who have good insurance. This makes it harder to catch the early treatment window. In most places, emergency rooms are always open, but besides being congested and understaffed, they are the last places infected people congregate or where the elderly or those at high risk have to spend hours accessing a critical drug.
A similar situation is underway for Evusheld, a Covid drug that was approved in December for the millions of immunocompromised people, such as transplant patients and those taking drugs that can suppress the immune system for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. In studies, the drug reduced symptomatic infections by about 83 percent. This drug provides them with additional protection for six months prophylactically. It’s been approved for months, and Biden also mentioned treatments for immunocompromised people in his State of the Union address. The federal government bought 1,700,000 doses to distribute for free.
So I guess this is where I should say, “Stop me if you’ve heard this before.”
In March, DailyExpertNews reported that as much as 80 percent of doses went unused as the Omicron wave washed over the country. A DailyExpertNews survey found desperate patients couldn’t find the drug, doctors didn’t know it even existed, and some pharmacies had hundreds of unused doses while others had none. Hospitals like the Mayo Clinic told DailyExpertNews they only had a few thousand boxes for the 10,000-plus patients who could benefit, while boxes were delivered to medical spas that offered Botox or eyelash extensions (and sat unused). The Detroit Free Press found supplies of Paxlovid and Evus unused because doctors didn’t prescribe them. A Kaiser Health News study found that government maps of inventories were missing many locations of doses. This happened even when desperate patients waited for lotteries to allocate some to them. Social media is also full of stories of despondent patients who, after much effort and extra pay, were unable to find doses or manage to get out of their insurance network. In the meantime, at least one IV center had so many unused doses it ran out of fridge space and refused new shipments.
What makes all of this even more troubling is that conditions such as diabetes and uncontrolled high blood pressure amplify the dangers of Covid, and the United States has a worse track record of such health indicators than many other wealthy countries.
The lack of a regular relationship with a medical provider — too common in the United States — leaves these high-risk people prone to confusion and misinformation, especially in today’s political environment. People without insurance have lagged completely behind in getting vaccinated and will face more obstacles in getting antivirals.
