as a"gamechanger" in the fight against the deadly global pandemic, and the Food and Drug Administration decided last week to authorize the treatment on an emergency-use basis for certain segments of the U.S. population.
Lin noted that while"we are already familiar with the fact that viruses naturally mutate to evade immunity... molnupiravir relies on inducing even more mutations so that eventually the virus' proteins are damaged beyond function. That molnupiravir can mutate SARS-CoV-2 to death has been demonstrated in the controlled conditions of a petri dish and lab animal cages, leading Merck to test it in covid-19 patients in clinical trials.
Lin's concerns about molnupiravir's capacity to generate new coronavirus variants could hardly be characterized as fringe alarmism, given the chorus of expert voices raising similar objections to the treatment.
michaelzlin Oh, dear.