In the early months of 2019, the pharmaceutical industry was under fire from legislators and the media about the exorbitant prices being charged in the U.S. for drugs. According to one poll reported by Ars Technica,1 58% of people in the U.S. held a negative view of the industry.

The price hike on one life-saving medication — EpiPen — rose from $50 in 2007 for a single autoinjector to $600 in 2018 for a pack of two.2 One reason the price rose so dramatically was that the maker, Mylan, began selling the injectors in two packs only — leaving the door open to charge whatever they felt like for that double-dose package.3

The move subsequently led to a class action lawsuit alleging "the two-pack sale of EpiPens is a pretense for charging unconscionable prices" and that Mylan is "misstating the science of EpiPen dosage in order to purportedly justify its price gouging,' in violation of various state deceptive and unfair trade practice and consumer protection laws," according to MarketWatch.

Profits for the drug company rose to $1.1 billion each year for the drug since it is next to impossible for people with severe allergic reactions to go without an EpiPen. But just when it looked like governmental agencies and legislators were considering looking at pricing policies, the pharmaceutical industry used the 2020 pandemic to reverse their public image when they were called upon to develop a vaccine for a viral infection at "Warp Speed."4

Now, despite the fact the industry holds no responsibility for adverse events associated with the vaccine,5 including death, 2020 gave Big Pharma the needed impetus to overcome their lowest reputation score since public opinion of the industry began being measured in 2001.6

During 2020, Big Pharma as a whole worked hard to portray itself as a benevolent industry that poured billions of dollars into the creation of drugs and vaccines with the intent of protecting public health. As part of that group, biotech giant Gilead Sciences is no different.

The company manufactures remdesivir,7 which is the antiviral drug favored by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the chief medical adviser to the president. However, while the chief medical officer of the U.S. promotes remdesivir, scientific evidence demonstrates the drug has a dark side, and it is not effective.

Fauci's Favored Drug Has a Dark Secret

The FDA fully approved remdesivir October 22, 2020, for use in adults and children in the treatment of COVID-19.8 This came after the emergency use authorization was issued May 1, 2020, for remdesivir in patients who had "suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19."

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug that is a nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor. It was tested in primates as a treatment for Ebola and found to have some effectiveness against the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002 and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2012.9

Before this, Gilead had produced a remarkably similar drug called tenofovir for HIV.10 Remdesivir is nearly a copy of Gilead's HIV drug and is also a reverse transcriptase inhibitor. According to a paper published in Molecules, "Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and many retroviruses that convert the RNA template to DNA."11

The enzyme helps to synthesize a strand of DNA that complements the RNA template. Several nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors are anti-HIV agents.12 This may support the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a chimera.