could be used only under extraordinary conditions, and the 2009 outbreak qualified. The FDA received 1,371 requests for the drug between October 2009 and June 2010. After the pandemic subsided, doctors went back to look at the success of peramivir, but were unable to draw any definitive conclusions. About 15 percent of the patients who received it died, but they were already critically ill when the request for the drug was made. Three years later the FDA approved peramivir, even though there was little evidence of its healing magic.
