The tamiflu kerfuffle is about a drug that works on some strains of influenza but not all of them.
It doesn't stop the flu: it only shortens the length you suffer symptoms...And it only works if you start it right away.
The problem? In your office, you don't know if it will work.
And most people don't see you until day two or three, when it is pretty well useless.
So I rarely used it.
Usually the danger was secondary infections: I told folks take tylenol etc. and if they got worse, to come back because they might have pneumonia etc.
in 1990, we had a nasty strain of the flu...after almost losing 2 folks in our nursing home, and knowing most of the cases were type A influenza, I started them on amantadine...the entire nursing home. Pissed off our (gov't) pharmacy, but no new cases popped up.
And amantadine is maybe why Patrician White Bull work up from a 10 year coma in Albuquerque...it is also used for Parkinson's disease.
Again about the 1990 flu epidemic: we almost lost two kids from Staph pneumonia...sent them to the university centers where they were pulled through in ICU settings...and I can't remember if this was resistant staph or not, but it was nasty.
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Number two drug story: Chinese herb works better for Rheumatoid arthritis.
Yup They compared it to sufasalazine, which is a lousy medicine that doesn't work well (which is why most cases get the anti cancer drug methotrexate to turn off the immune system that is killing their joints).
and not noted: A lot of these "chinese herbal medicines" in the US have been found to contain indomethazone, and there have been cases of aplastic anemia from this.
Also many batches contain cortisone, which "cures" Rheumatoid arthritis, but you end up fat, diabetic, and osteoporotic.
so my question: who made the 'herbal medicine', and did they check what was in it?
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