US Spending $1.2 Billion on Merck’s COVID-19 Treatment Is a ‘Waste of Taxpayers’ Money’: Doctor

US Spending $1.2 Billion on Merck’s COVID-19 Treatment Is a ‘Waste of Taxpayers’ Money’: Doctor
Merck corporate headquarters in Kenilworth, N.J., on May 1, 2018. Seth Wenig/File/AP Photo
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A critical care doctor has said it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money for the U.S. government to purchase drug company Merck’s anti-viral treatment for COVID-19, if it’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), said there’s no reason for the Biden administration to “enrich Merck for a drug, which has already been the source of a whistleblower complaint, and which has already failed in hospitalized patients” when ivermectin, a “low cost, safe, widely available [drug that] has proven to work in many phases of the disease, not only as outpatients but inpatients” is ready to be distributed to Americans.