On this malone. He is a frustrated scientist his career is crahing in flame. Similar story to didier raoult, and scott atlas, one of the last trump advisor on COVID
Malone claims to be the inventor of mRNA vaccines, although credit for the distinction is more often given to later advancements by
Katalin Karikó or
Derrick Rossi,
[8][6][9][10] and was ultimately the result of the contributions of hundreds of researchers, of whom Malone was but one.
[11]
In early 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic, Malone was involved in research into the heartburn medicine
famotidine (Pepcid) as a
potential COVID-19 treatment following anecdotal evidence suggesting that it may have been associated with higher COVID-19 survival. Malone, then with Alchem Laboratories, suspected famotidine may target an enzyme that the virus (
SARS-CoV-2) uses to reproduce, and recruited a computational chemist to help design a 3D-model of the enzyme based on the viral sequence and comparisons to the
2003 SARS virus.
[19][20] After encouraging preliminary results, Alchem Laboratories, in conjunction with New York's
Northwell Health, initiated a clinical trial on famotidine and
hydroxychloroquine.
[19] Malone resigned from Alchem shortly after the trial began and Northwell paused the trial due to a shortage of hospitalized patients.
[18][21]
Malone received criticism for propagating
COVID-19 misinformation, including making unsupported claims about the alleged toxicity of
spike proteins generated by some
COVID-19 vaccines;
[2][10][4][22] using interviews on mass media to popularize self-medication with
ivermectin;
[23] and tweeting a study by others questioning vaccine safety that was later retracted.[2] He said
LinkedIn suspended his account over what he claimed were posts he had made questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines.
[24] Malone has also claimed that the
Pfizer–BioNTech and
Moderna COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19 infections.
[1]
With another researcher, Malone successfully proposed to the publishers of
Frontiers in Pharmacology a special issue featuring early observational studies on existing medication used in the treatment of COVID-19, for which they recruited other guest editors, contributors, and reviewers.
The journal rejected two of the papers selected: one on famotidine co-authored by Malone and another submitted by physician Pierre Kory on the use of ivermectin.[21] The publisher rejected the ivermectin paper due to what it stated were "a series of strong, unsupported claims" which they determined did "not offer an objective nor balanced scientific contribution."[21] Malone and most other guest editors resigned in protest in April 2021, and the special issue has been pulled from the journal's website.[21]
Malone has also been criticized for falsely claiming that the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had not granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine in August 2021.
[25]