Bird Flu Hype Continues in Flu Season But Maintain Perspective

An article published by Reuters and carried by Yahoo on January 26 refers to a study carried out by a research team at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. It found that bird flu viruses carry a unique gene that is especially destructive to cells.

The researchers used a collection of samples of 11,000 influenza viruses, including 7,000 avian influenza viruses, assembled from sites around the world by St. Jude’s Dr. Robert Webster over 30 years. The researchers have been working to sequence the genomes of all known influenza viruses.

"We have sequenced a diverse sampling of 336 avian influenza viruses from this collection including isolates from ducks, gulls, shorebirds and poultry collected in North American, Eurasian, and Australasian countries, primarily during the years 1976 to 2004," the researchers said. Interestingly, even though flu viruses have just eight genes and are relatively simple organisms, no one has done this before. Their findings are published in the journal Science.

The tone of the Reuters article, including quotes attributed to the scientists, continues  the general paranoia and fear mongering about bird flu in the media. I suppose scientists are not silly, they know how to scare up some funding, literally.

Avian flu virus’s have always been around and they always will be. According to the World Health Organization the current strand has been around since 1997 and has killed 150 odd people worldwide in the 8 years since. Compare this with more than 30,000 deaths each year in the US alone from ordinary flu’s, and it makes you wonder what all the fuss is about? However that is addressed elsewhere.

By the way, Tamiflu doesn’t seem to work for people who contract the bird flu. The last three people who contracted the bird flu in Vietnam were all given Tamiflu at the earliest possible stage but two of them still died. It is quite well known in scientific circles that Tamiflu won’t help because it is a totally different type of virus and yet billions of dollars are being spent on it. You can follow the money to uncover the perpetrators of this massively expensive hoax.

The world is full of viruses, and always will be. The only way to protect yourself against viruses and/or any disease is to ensure that you are healthy and have a strong immune system. That means in addition to good food, exercise and lifestyle choices, the avoidance of drugs which will compromise your immune system. If you do want to do more then make sure it counts.

An excellent discussion of flu and its management and treatment is provided by Xtend-Life. Details of their new antiviral specific supplement are available too.

An analysis of survey data by The Commonwealth Fund reveals several health and health-related financial problems facing a growing number of people. The Executive Summary states:

Employers are responding to rising health insurance premiums by shifting more of their costs to employees in the form of greater premium contributions, higher deductibles, larger copayments, and slower wage increases. Some employers, particularly small firms, are dropping coverage altogether. The combination of rising out-of-pocket health care costs and sluggish wage growth threatens workers’ ability to save for retirement. This is particularly true for older adults ages 50 to 64, or "baby boomers," whose per capita health care expenditures are more than twice those of younger adults.

So why is it that the baby boomers are so stretched financially when attempting to meet their health needs? Well, it appears they are preoccupied with managing significant diseases. Among the key findings reported we find the following:

Older adults have high rates of chronic health conditions. The incidence of chronic conditions increases dramatically with age, placing older adults at greater risk of incurring high medical costs than younger adults. Sixty-two percent of 50-to-64-year-olds in working households reported they had at least one of six chronic conditions. High blood pressure, arthritis, and high cholesterol were the most common problems, with about 30 percent of respondents citing any one.

This is quite a troubling situation. It is a sad indictment on the dominant medical system, including university researchers, medical professionals, health bureaucrats, educators at all levels involved in teaching about health and wellbeing from the perspective of this system, the pharmaceutical industry, and the myriad related professionals working within this system. Indeed, rather than providing a solution, this system is a large part of the problem.

It is no wonder that millions of people are abandoning the orthodox methods in favor of alternative approaches to health. Of course, if you aren’t willing to take action to ensure a longer and fuller life, enjoying the many benefits of real health and wellbeing, then you are left with no real options. Unfortunately, you will very likely develop one or more of the life-sapping chronic diseases. One blessing is that you may never even know just how much you have lost, unless you have already enjoyed truely excellent, vibrant health.

If you aren’t satisfied with your level of health or you already have various ailments that you’d like to eliminate then you must do something about it. And you had better start now. I will be publishing a book to show you just how to procede but it is a couple of months away.

In the meantime, here are a couple of things you can do right now. First, start cleansing your system. You can use the products at our Health Products Site or go and find another sound approach, just be sure to do something. Second, ensure optimal nutrition support. Again, I highly recommend the best products for this which are available via our own site, but you could use products near this quality if you prefer. Again, take action, don’t just think about it.

If you aren’t willing to pay for the excellent value products I recommend or your preferred alternatives, read the report from The Commonwealth Fund. It should be clear that what I am recommending is an investment in real health. The path of inaction is not neutral, it will lead to enormous costs of so-called health care, that we both know is really going to be disease care. It’s your choice; it’s your life.

One thing is certain. If you place your trust in the orthodox medical system and continue with unhealthy lifestyle patterns, you will find yourself in all the disease statistics you probably would rather not be a part of. And if you are relying on the current medical system to save you, think very carefully about those statistics. Quite clearly that system is failing to deliver on its many promises. The fact is, it has never delivered.

There is a new, potential alternative for many of the more than 5 million Americans who take insulin injections, with the Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Friday, January 27 of the first ever inhaled insulin.  Exubera, an inhaled powder form of recombinant human insulin (rDNA) for the treatment of adult patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, is the first new insulin delivery option introduced since the discovery of insulin in the 1920s.

"Until today, patients with diabetes who need insulin to manage their disease had only one way to treat their condition," said Dr. Steven Galson, Director, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, FDA.  "It is our hope that the availability of inhaled insulin will offer patients more options to better control their blood sugars."

Diabetes is a disease that affects the amount of insulin and sugar in your body.  Exubera is a human form of insulin and as such, lowers blood sugar concentrations by allowing the blood sugar to be taken up by cells as a source of fuel.  Exubera is a powdered form of insulin that is able to be inhaled into the lungs through the patient’s mouth using a specially designed inhaler.

There are two major types of diabetes – type 1 and type 2.  People with type 1 diabetes produce virtually no insulin.  In type 2, the most common form of the disease, the body does not produce enough insulin or effectively use insulin.  If people with diabetes do not properly control their blood sugar levels, serious complications including heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, and nerve damage may develop.

The safety and efficacy of Exubera have been studied in approximately 2500 adult patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.  In clinical studies, Exubera reached peak insulin concentration more quickly than some insulins, called regular insulin, administered by an injection.  Peak insulin levels were achieved at 49 minutes (range 30 to 90 minutes) with Exubera inhaled insulin compared to 105 minutes (range 60 to 240 minutes) with regular insulin, respectively.  In type 1 diabetes, inhaled insulin may be added to longer acting insulins as a replacement for short-acting insulin taken with meals.  In type 2 diabetes, inhaled insulin may be used alone, along with oral (non-insulin) pills that control blood sugar, or with longer acting insulins.

Exubera prescriptions will be accompanied by a Medication Guide containing FDA-approved information written especially for patients.  Pharmacists are required to distribute Medication Guides with products FDA has determined are important to health, and patient adherence to directions for use is crucial to the product’s effectiveness.  Patients are advised to read the entire Medication Guide and talk to their healthcare provider if they have further questions.

Like any insulin product, low blood sugar is a side effect of Exubera and patients should carefully monitor their blood sugars regularly.  Other side effects associated with Exubera therapy seen in clinical trials included cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, and dry mouth.

Exubera is not to be used if you smoke or if you recently quit smoking (within the last 6 months).  Exubera is not recommended in patients with asthma, bronchitis, or emphysema.  Baseline tests for lung function are recommended before beginning treatment and are recommended to be repeated every 6 to 12 months thereafter.

While Exubera has been extensively studied for safety, the sponsor has committed to performing long-term studies to confirm the continued safety of Exubera after it is marketed and to examine more thoroughly the issue of the efficacy and safety of Exubera in patients with underlying lung disease. Unfortunately this is a continuation of normal FDA policy to support the pharmaceutical industry by approving very undertested products and making consumers into research subjects in a giant, uncontrolled and risky trial.

Australians were among the foreign participants in clinical trials. The product has not yet been approved for use in Australia.

Exubera is manufactured by Pfizer Inc., NY, NY

Recently I read reports in several places of research conducted by Rosandra Kaplan, an oncologist at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College in New York and David Lyden, a Cornell associate professor in pediatrics and developmental biology. It was, I think, quite a significant piece of research. It was published in the December 8, 2005 edition of the journal Nature.

The Cornell research team conducted their experiments on mice, animals that have proven quite useful as human models for many medical studies (though, along with the Animal Rights campaigners, I am not particularly comfortable with their cruel exploitation). They injected the mice’s skin with lung cancer cells, expecting them to migrate immediately to the lungs.
Instead, the scientists watched as fluorescently labeled bone marrow cells reached the lungs days before to make the metastasis possible.

The researchers concluded that cancers use bone marrow cells to prepare supportive landing sites ahead of the arrival of tumor cells, enabling successful development of metastatic tumor sites. The bone marrow cells actually help make blood vessels that provide oxygen and other nutrients needed to sustain the spreading cancers.

A comment on the study by Patricia Steeg, director of molecular therapeutics at the US National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., suggested the experiments on mice with lung cancer seem to answer longstanding questions about what gives tumors the power to invade new tissues. Drugs such as Avastin from Genentech Inc. and Roche Holding AG that can slow blood vessel growth in existing cancers also might help doctors prevent metastasis, wrote Steeg.

The marrow cells appeared to aid the spread of cancer by making a natural protein called vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1, which is thought to spur the formation of tumor-feeding blood vessels. With clinical application immediately in mind the mice were injected with molecules that blocked the protein, VEGFR1, and it was noted that the metastasis stopped.

Some drugs work by blocking another related protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which interacts with VEGFR1 in blood vessel formation. In addition, immune system antibodies, that block bone marrow cells in the bloodstream are also under development at Cornell.

Cancer is an important disease, or collection of diseases. It is the number two cause of death in the United States after heart disease. Researchers have long wondered just how pieces of a tumor can break off, travel through the bloodstream, and grow elsewhere such as the lung, liver, or brain. It is usually the metastatic disease that proves fatal.

Certainly for those who already have cancer this research is important, as are the drug and antibody therapies that it will inspire. If they prove life saving then clearly that will be very welcome indeed.

However, I am not completely convinced that it is as simple as the people who would like to market the solutions would have us believe. I wonder, for instance, what impact having flourescently treated bone marrow cells in vivo in the first place might have. How much has that influenced the study and not merely facilitated it.

I am certain that the nature of the cellular environment is important, but in addition to VEGF and VEGFR1 what else is there? How toxic was the whole body or in the case of people rather than mice, the whole person? If people develop disease within a given cellular environment then something or somethings about and within that environment enabled or caused it or both.

Where is the cleansing? Why is it automatically appropriate to further toxify the environment with drugs and artificial antibody treatments? Without proper cleansing it is no wonder so many orthodox treatments fail partially or completely or patients relapse.

Again I say, if the treatments developed as a result of this research save lives, then they are very welcome. However, I cannot accept it as a panacea because it remains locked within the orthodox paradigm. I would much prefer to see people adopt a healthy lifestyle and to maintain so much positive health and wellbeing, diseases like cancer were prevented. Prevention is and will always be far better than cure.