WELL, THIS SUCKS: “Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why. . . . Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.”
I know I have some medics and scientists reading this blog, and I’d like to hear from you if you’ve got any explanations for this sort of thing. I thought I had a decent understanding of natural selection, but could it work this fast, and from as small a base? From ten percent immunity to 100 percent in barely a year?
What mechanism could be behind this?
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Global Warming.
Bush.
The (Sort-Of) War Against (Some) Drugs…
The Imperialist Invasion Of Iraq…
Obviously, a deep, dark plot by the CIA/NSA/Karl Rove/Ozzie Osbourne (Well, he says he’s the Prince Of Darkness…)
The Other Man On The Grassy Knoll…
The power of evolution is pretty damned impressive. It does make sense that the flu strains that survive, would be the resistent/immune ones. And given the massive number of flu shots given each year, they would be the ones most easily spread. Even so, two years to develop that kind of immunity is amazing.
I wonder how the drug companies will respond.
Two drugs in use are effective against the new strain. Relenza is hard to use, and the other they stopped using due to immunity issues. The mix of Tamiflu and rimantadine seems to be the best bet for treating flu at this time.
I’m sure that under socialized medicine we’ll have a new treatment in no time…..NOT!
Well, my question would be, did you go to the doc and get a shot of Tamiflu the last time you had the flu? I’ve never had the stuff. Further, last year was the big run on Tamiflu for home stockpiling against the possibility of Avian Flu - I got a couple of doses from my very reluctant doc in December of ‘07, and then he wouldn’t give it out any more. That was when there were hardly any Tamiflu stocks to begin with.
So, if not very many people were ingesting Tamiflu, how the hell did the bug develop universal and complete immunity in only one year?
Emphasis added. And of course it was a strain that was not included in the vaccine. This, along with the fact that it is more infectious, allowed it to spread from where it developed last year.
Speaking as one of the docs:
1) The science supporting Tamiflu is not super-strong in the first place. It’s something less than a miracle cure. If taken within the first 48 hours, it’s “proven” to shorten the duration of illness.
2) As genes says, Tamiflu works on a specific molecular target than not all flu strains have. Every genetic change isn’t necessarily mutation secondary to biopharmaceutical selective pressure from humans. Sometimes, Mother Nature ignores us (other than laughing at us).