Comments on: How drug-resistant flu took us by surprise

By: Yoo

Yoo — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:37:19 +0000

@1 (DR DAVID HILL):
I’m confused: doesn’t this article and the rest of your comment support the vaccine strategy over after-the-fact administration of antivirals?

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:40:44 +0000

Actually that first paragraph reveals nothing that you wouldn’t find out about in the first 15 mins of the film or in a review. He wins the competition and then everything else plays out in flashback.

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:38:24 +0000

Nice post. Just gently suggesting here that you not insert spoilers to movies without giving readers a warning first.

By: JCL

JCL — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:32:15 +0000

I have just been nailed with something that felt real bad. I had a script for Amoxicillian from two months ago in my medicine cabinet. 875mg tablets a weeks worth( 2 tabs a day). This illness started out with a sore throat. With in a day was running a fever and chills, watery eyes, awful cough and congestion. I still have a slight sickness. Added Mucenex to get rid of congestion two days ago. (Four days of litteral hell). Could not get more then two hours of sleep at a time. Coughing was so bad. Last three days been getting better slowly. Still feel slight sore throat. The script of antibiotcs is nearly gone. What ever this was it is still present. My whole point is we need to find why and how these flu’s are mutating with resistense to super tough antibiotics? Are there any new weapons other then old news Tamiflu? I never got the shot for H1N1. My main reason for this was CONFUSION on what was supposed to work? The CDC needs to do a better job at letting all of us know the truth. Don’t confuse us with B S. Just tell us the truth I think the American Public can most of the way handle that…

By: zackoz

zackoz — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:58:35 +0000

“It cannot be bargained with. It cannot be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear.”

I think I read that somewhere.

By: drcharles

drcharles — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:55:08 +0000

fascinating story of science and chance, if only the (indifferent) main character weren’t a villain

By: DR DAVID HILL

DR DAVID HILL — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:19:53 +0000

The facts are that even this new ‘kid on the block’ developed in Hong Kong that seemingly offers a cure, will become useless like all others that have gone before it.

Today the fallacy of the vaccine strategy was cited in quite eminent research that is headed by a Nobel Laureate.

Mutations “make flu drugs useless”
Friday 4th June 2010 (published in the magazine Science)

New mutations in the influenza virus could soon make all but one of the drugs designed to fight it virtually useless, research has suggested.

A study published in the journal Science found that two changes in the genetic structure of the organism had made it more resistant to Roche’s Tamiflu, the current treatment of choice, as well as strengthening its survivability and contagiousness.

Research leader Jesse Bloom, of the California Institute of Technology, said the findings were surprising, because such mutations in drug resistance usually compromised a virus’s capability to spread..

“Something happened to make the Tamiflu-resistant virus also capable of replicating and spreading like wild-type flu viruses,” he said.

The news comes not long after the World Health Organization announced that the H1N1 pandemic had not ended.

(end of publication in Science)

The only way as we have said countless times now to stop killer pandemics is to never let them happen in the first place – http://avian-influenza.cirad.fr/content/download/1931/11789/file/Kennedy-F-Shortridge.pdf

Dr David Hill
Executive Director
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland