Bird Flu.... Just a thought...

It occured to me whilst having a discussion with my mate down the pub..

The main cause of death when one contracts Bird Flu is your own bodies immune response. This is the reason why it is young, healthy people that seem to die.

Now, they tout and anti-viral, called Tamiflu, as protection against it. Whislt not denying that an anti-viral probably has it's uses, considering the cause of death is immune response, it seems to be missing the target. It would also negate the bodies ability to develop a resistance to the virus, as the tamiflu would be doing the fighting.

Why not use immuno-supressant's? These would lessen the immuno-response caused by H5N1 and would, albeit in a weakened state, allow the body to develop an immunity against the virus. You would probably be in some discomfort for a while if you caught the Flu, but then, you usually are when you have Flu anyway. But at the end of it, at least your body fought of the bug itself and gained an immunity.

Seems to me that they push this "wonder drug", Tamiflu, on everyone, making a mint out of it in the process, whilst not really helping anyone resist the disease. By having no-one immune to the disease, they gurantee future income for Tamiflu.

Also, how come they happened to have Tamiflu ready when H5N1 appeared?

Hmmmmm.....

Tamiflu has been around and used to treat other common types of flu we experience each year. The difference is is that Tamiflu as opposed to other antivirals seems to be more effective in combating this particular strain of flu.

Other antivirals have been used on birds primarily chickens and hence the virus has built a resistance.

In terms of negating the body of defending itself because Tamiflu would be doing all the fighting isn't really accurate.
When we are sick we take Tylenol or other cold/flu products. While this makes us feel better it also lessens our bodies defenses because we reduce the fever are bodies turn up in order to fight the viruses.
Tamiflu doesn't do all of the work in place of our white blood cells but rather lessens the duration and severity of the flu.

In terms of an immuno-suppresant? I am not really sure. It sounds like it may work. I will look more into that

Hmm.. Well, I'm a telecoms enginer not a doctor so thanks for the input

I just try to think logically about something. I do know that fever helps, often when I am ill I will wrap myself in a 13.5 tog duvet and wack on the heating. Tends to clear up the disease overnight.

I thought of suppressing the immune response seeing as that is what appears to bugger up the poor sods who catch bird flu... Obviously, not suppressing it completely, just toning it down a notch...

Good thinking stumason.

And you're right - people with a healthy immune response are in the most danger from bird flu and other hemorrhagic diseases. The immune reaction causes a 'cytokine storm.'

Last year, scientists recommended using common cheap generic drugs called statins to block the cytokine storm. Their logic was dead-on - but the idea got disappeared for some reason.

Bird flu and statins

In an extremely interesting article in the Clinicians Biosecurity Network Weekly Bulletin (issue of 9/27/05) Borio and Bartlett review a suggestion of David Fedson, an expert on vaccines (and former Director of Medical Affairs at Aventis Pasteur), that statins (tradenames Zocor or Lipitor) might be helpful in preventing serious complications of influenza, perhaps by dampening the cytokine response.

The statins are widely used and available drugs used to lower cholesterol. They also have anti-inflammatory activities, perhaps by preventing activation of the transcription factor NF-kappaB. One mechanism thought to underlie the virulence of the H5N1 virus is production of a "cytokine storm," an unregulated systemic inflammatory response that results in a rapidly developing generalized clotting disorder, hemorrhage, kidney failure and fluid-filled lungs. The phenomenon is similar to or the same as what is called gram-negative sepsis or septic shock, a serious complication of bacterial infections that claims 400,000 to 500,000 lives each year in the US and has 50% to 70% mortality. Treatment for sepsis is a high priority independently of any role for the same or similar mechanism in influenza.

The idea that statins might be helpful for sepsis or influenza is based on more than speculation about mechanism. In 2004 Almog et al. (Circulation, Aug 17 2004;110(7):880-885) reported that patients admitted to the hospital with acute bacterial infections and who were on statins for more than a month for other reasons had a dramatically reduced incidence of severe sepsis (19% versus 2.2%) and reduced admission to the Intensive Care Unit (12.2% vs. 3.7%). An interesting point is that patients on statins might be expected to be at greater risk because they are taking a medication for a pre-existing medical condition.

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