Posted on 11/11/2005 4:29:40 PM PST by blam
Bird flu may over-stimulate immune system
HONG KONG, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Researchers in Hong Kong say the H5N1 bird flu virus may provoke an excessive immune reaction, explaining why it is deadly even to the young and healthy.
Laboratory tests on human cells showed that the virus caused the immune system to send proteins called cytokines to infected lung cells, a reaction that would end up damaging or destroying the tissues the immune system is meant to defend.
The tests were carried out by scientists at the University of Hong Kong, working with samples from patients who died in Vietnam. The results were published in the online medical journal Respiratory Research.
The research suggested that patients who contract bird flu may need drugs that suppress the immune response in addition to anti-viral drugs like Tamiflu. It also indicated that healthy people with strong immune systems could fare worse than others if they became infected.
The virus has killed flocks of poultry and migratory birds, particularly in Asia, in recent months, but only 124 people have been infected, through direct contact with birds. Sixty-four of them have died.
The new research may affect preparations by health officials worldwide, who fear a pandemic may occur if the virus mutates to become passed from human to human.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
I'm not suggesting suppressing the immune system by any means.
ah OK some conflicting messages in this thread, my apologies I jumped in without reading it all
Ping.
OK, so if I'm reading this right the best treatment for someone with H5N1 might be to give them AIDS?
How about vice-versa? Might H5N1 cure AIDS?
Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?
Thinking outside the box, in fact, thinking that the box is all wet, is a good thing. Often wrong, but a good thing.
You go first.
I have this attitude about "fatal illnesses" that comes partly from a Heinlein novel, I Will Fear No Evil, where an uber rich guy who wants to be allowed to die (but is kept alive against his will) comes up with an outrageous plan to fund and participate in a brain transplant experiment. He's sure that he won't survive and that will get around his problems. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending) it works out.
If I were terminal, or even just "hopelessly" crippled, I'd go out of my way looking for "kill or cure" type of treatments. Again, what would I have to lose?
True. (...and, you could become famous after death if it didn't work out.)
Thanks for the ping. I was away for a while.
Our troops were coming home from the Great War in Europe, had used aspirin successfully on the battlefield to fight fever, and aspirin was just being unleashed on the civilian population by Bayer. The primary initial defense that the body has against viruses is fever, as virus's don't function above 102 degrees. If you hold down the fever with aspirin, Tylenol or TamiFlu, then you allow the virus to build up in your body, until it risks overwhelming you with viral pneumonia. Many are lost each year to this, but the sudden onset of the use of aspirin in 1918 would have made for a dramatic onslaught of such deaths the first flu season.
This comes from Brother Jonathan, a site that has a number of "interesting" and controversial theories, at least one of which will appear to be nut case conspiratorial to almost any given reader. So believe it only if your independent judgement leads you to agree with him.
LETTER: 1918 FLU AND SARS POSTED: 04/28/03
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Reader Question "WHAT CAUSED THE DEADLY 1918 FLU?" My question: Before there was aspirin and cold and flu meds there was a world wide epidemic of flu that killed millions. It was during the First WW. At that point the only thing they could do was put people to bed and keep them warm. Why did so many die? --- Nancy Answer:
The source of the "1918 Flu" which is also incorrectly called the "Spanish Flu" has been a medical mystery. But the mystery is solved.
The beginning of the 1918 flu season started in November 1918. This also was the end of WWI marked by Armistice Day November 11, 1918. Thus millions of soldiers from the trenches in Europe all were sent home. What they took with them was normal flu from China which occurs each year, and they also took with them the newly marketed aspirin.
Aspirin was patented by Bayer AG after Dr. Hoffmann's synthesis of acetyl-salicylic-acid in 1899. Bayer mostly marketed its new Aspirin in Germany, but during WWI the use of Aspirin came into general use in the field medical hospitals as the only effective mild pain reliever and a treatment for coughs, colds and fever.Thus the "deadly" 1918 Flu was caused by the new use of Aspirin to treat soldiers during the war. The result of reducing the fever from influenza is massive growth of the flu virus in the lungs and thus Atypical Pneumonia or simply Viral Pneumonia almost always resulting in death.
Since this first occurred worldwide at the end of WWI it was called the "1918 Flu." In the last several years, medical archaeologists have tried to obtain tissue samples from people who died from the 1918 Flu to find why it was so deadly.
So far the virus samples seem to be no different from other flu virus samples. They cannot explain why it was so deadly. It was not the flu virus which made it so deadly - it was the first worldwide use of the new pills called Aspirin to treat the flu which killed millions in 1918.
According to the latest CDC statistics, "Influenza and Pneumonia" are the deadliest infectious disease compared to the deaths from all causes, such as car accidents, murder, heart disease, cancer etc. Normally during the annual flu season Pneumonia Flu deaths range from about 3 percent during the summer to about 10 to 12 percent during the winter. The normal flu season runs from about November to April.There are actually two related diseases. Influenza is a viral infection which attacks the lungs and causes fever and cough. And then there is Viral Pneumonia caused by improperly treating the influenza with aspirin, and NSAIDs. There is a separate type of Pneumonia caused by bacteria which should not be in this category. The improper treatment of influenza with Aspirin, and later NSAID synthetics and now even Anti-viral medications such as TamiFlu are the cause not the cure for Atypical Pneumonia, now improperly named SARS.
The first worldwide use of Aspirin to treat influenza was during WWI resulting in the millions of deaths from the 1918 Flu. Each year since then the number of worldwide cases of Influenza is about 10 to 100 million resulting in an average death rate of about 1 million worldwide. Most of all of those deaths could be prevented by simply not reducing the fever during the onset of influenza.
SARS could be stopped overnight, if doctors would separate flu from Atypical Pneumonia by not treating the fever with drugs.Marshall Smith
Editor, BroJon Gazette
Ok, I have some issues with the article - first, the flu did not start when the soldiers came home at the end of the war - the flu pandemic caused the end of the war.
Here's a Bird flu article. Haven't even read it yet, looks like actual info.
My oops. It is not a new article, but a new reply. I neglected to look at the date.
I need to always look at the dates of the artcles, not just the newest reply date!
The first flu cases were recorded in March 1918. That first wave, in the spring of 1918, was less deadly. In the second wave, in September and October 1918 was more deadly. World War I ended between 29 September (Bulgaria) and November 11 (Germany) as one by one, the various Central powers signed ceasefires and armistices. The celebrations and returning troops led to a resurgence of the pandemic in the winter of 1918-19. The third and final wave came in the spring of 1919.
On the other hand, the Brother Jonathan article that I posted surely overstates the role of aspirin in all this. I just can't imagine that aspirin spread like wild fire over the world, even into nations such as India that suffered the most flu deaths, as quickly as did the flu.
On the third hand, I find it quite persuasive that taking fever reducing medicines such as aspirin could well increase the risk of death from a serious round of the flu. Fevers of 102 to 104 are a healthy response to the flu, and the body's primary defense mechanism. One should not suppress that.
Have fun.
And in any case, this in no way provides evidence for your claim that the flu ended the Great War. That war was coming to an end anyway, with the arrival of more U.S. and other Allied troops.
Whatever ... have fun.
As any high-school parent KNOWS:
1) wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water often
2) maintenance doses of Vit. C 500mg / day (precluded by any preexisting renal conditions - read SEE YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU'RE CONFUSED ABOUT THAT)
3) given #2, drink AT LEAST the MRDA water (D'uh!)
4) throw in a couple anti-oxidizers, e.g. Vit. E
5) don't hop onto the Tamiflu bandwagon until you KNOW there's a local epizootic
6) have at least 10% (with a strong vow to the conviction of inrease) of a Y2K supply vault
7) invest heavily in womens hygeine, feminine and other products (see #6)
8) Ignoring #7 & #6, you'll want to look at number ONE very very very closely.
Then there's that other issue about "cytokine-storm" mitigation. On the one hand if a "fever" begins, you don't want to use analgesics unless it goes above 102F in adults (children can go MUCH higher) - define "MUCH" - and also textbooks should be obtained. The latter to explain to ones children just WHY they're dying, and how come it makes no difference if they live or not.
About that cytokine storm, I've heard that those afflicted with Lupus have discerned good results:
More about: edifying link to metabolic glycosacharide nutrition
you can shoot me for the spam; I frankly don't know all that much about glycosachrides (except second hand info from a Lupus patient).
If you would rather focus on other things now, go right ahead and pay this topic no mind.
That realization hit one of my conceited and intellectually smug engineering acquientences when I told him what my Y2K vault consisted of.
Don't you worry though, my kindergarten report card indicates: shares well with others.
I'll farm some of 'em out and herd a few up north. /sarcasm off I don't know, as far's the washin' the hands thing: whar's the prollem? And you know what? I think it needs to be said: when you wash your hands use soap AND water, o.k? I know that a lot of you think your SO smart but it would escape you to consider having packs of those germicidal packets in your car that you would use to wash your hands the moment you came in from the grocery.
You know what else? I used to work as a lab tech in a metal phosphating company. I learned about acid and nasty bases extremely real quick, and to abstain from putting my fingers into my eyes, ears, nose, throat, face, genitalia, etc (without having washed them before hand).
I got to workin' in an office environment after that. The coffee pot. Just remember where your fingers have been (before and afterwards). One of that nastiest colds I EVER came down with was something I termed an eye cold. I was wearing contacts, and didn't pay attention to neither my surroundings, nor what the hell I was doing.
I'm not an ostrich (unlike many I know who are dismayed about the potential implications of any plausible upcoming pandemic), but I want to stress one thing: should worse come to worse, the worse you can imagine won't even do justice to what occurs.
I'm telling you one thing: these threads are great; they keep us apraised of the upcoming threat. But they actually do very little with respect to minimizing risk. That's my point. I threw some gallows humor in there, and you jump down my throat. That's fine. That don't mean I'm not watching this extremely closely (including drilling into whatever links are presented by whomever about whatever).
Never can know too much is my thinkin'. You want to counter that?
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