Charles Krathammer noted today in Washington Post that any terrorist can now obtain a digital copy (electronic or DNA) of the Spanish flu that killed tens of millions in 1918-1919. The powers that be felt that the study opportunities given its similarity to avian flu outweighed the risks. The evolving flu pandemic may provide a stark test of my (Sam not Rand) hypothesis that democratic capitalism protects itself.

I joined Bill Joy in raising an alarm about the publishing of the human genome back in 2000 in my own little way contributing my own Op-Ed piece (not accepted). I have since changed my view. Simon's The Ultimate Resoure 2 changed my view. When we have a bad actor like a terrorist who wants to kill millions, there are trillions of dollars mobilized to combat it when the threat becomes imminent.

That is, if bird flu broke out, there would be massive quarantines, crash vaccine and anti-viral drug production programs, virus safety instructions, massive scientific study and so on. The people in harm's way will pay thousands each to buy black market antivirals, head for the hills, or whatever course of action is open to them.

Capitalism is kind of like if you need a taxi ride to the hospital to save your life you start waving hundred dollar bills to attract a cab. Democracy means we have a government that can field an army if capitalism falters due to breakdown of property rights and rule of law.

You can improve your chances and possibly capitalism's chances if you do the following. Ask your doctor to prescribe a 42-day prophylactic course of Tamiflu. Don't start taking the prophylaxis course until bird flu is sighted in your area. Tamiflu also can be used for 5 days (at twice the dosage) for acute treatment if you start to show symptoms. Track avian flu's spread from chicken to Turkey at the World Health Organization.

There won't be enough Tamiflu if bird flu is a big hit. Unless the price starts to rise now. Unless capitalism's wheels start to turn to produce a lot of it. Unless democracy steps in and does mandatory licensing so every pharmaceuticals manufacturer can produce tamiflu.

"The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations," depending on how resiliant they are.

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2005-10-14 14:57:32

It looks like I am a little late with my advice. A couple weeks ago it was reported Roche said it was unable to keep up with demand. Maybe this prior post was enough for you to act. If you want to have my ten doses, make a conditional pledge to the Space Frontier Foundation in the comments to this post and bring a prescription to next week's SFF meeting in LA.
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2005-10-17 09:38:00
Henry Miller WSJ (subscription required) echoed my words, "In society, as in biology, resilience means survival."

"Track avian flu's spread from chicken to Turkey.."

But has it reached Gander?

Looks like its hard on the liver. That sucks! When the bird flu strikes I'll have to stop drinking :(

Why produce gobs and gobs of Tamiflu if the avian flu is, as reported here on TTM, resistant to Tamiflu?

Because the human to human eventual mutation may not be immune to Tamiflu. It might bring the weakness of the human starin to Tamiflu with it.

BTW, Sam, try getting a course of Tamiflu, it cannot be had for love nor money now.

"BTW, Sam, try getting a course of Tamiflu, it cannot be had for love nor money now."

I got my course of tamiflu back before the rush. I will report back on Monday how I do for a full prophylactic course.

"Why produce gobs and gobs of Tamiflu if the avian flu is, as reported here on TTM, resistant to Tamiflu?"

Some resistance means some effectiveness. I would happily part with $1000 to reduce the risk of dying from avian flu if I am struck with it from x% to x-3%. Make that x-0.01%.

If the outbreak happens, stay home.

Stock up, RIGHT NOW, on two months worth of Rammen Noodles and canned goods. Take your kids out of school and wait it out. Staying away from your fellow man will do you more good than any amount of Tamiflu.

I shudder to think of the state of my health after two straight months of Ramen noodles. ;-)

Quote from Jardinero: "Staying away from your fellow man will do you more good than any amount of Tamiflu."

I think it is also worth mentioning that the behavioral response for a sick person is to lay down and go to bed and be left alone. This innate action does much to control the spread of a disease to other people. The fact that society now days has requires jobs to offer sick days allows for such behavior and has inadvertently done much to mitigate wide spread infections in today’s society. In the old days people had to continually work long hours in relatively spartan and cramped conditions. Then add to the fact that traveling anywhere usually meant hopping onto a slow train, boat, or horse drawn cart with several people sitting together. In fact, it makes for a good point that in several my very recent memory I can recall several stories of diseases easily spreading to patrons of nostalgic vacation cruises quite frequently. Much different are the times today when a majority of people have their own homes and plush SUV’s with air filtration A/C systems to cart them around. It seems to me that in most every infectious disease scenario the best method to dealing with the spread is through quarantine.

Here is something I found of interest on the Center for Disease Control website, “Two other antiviral medicines, oseltamavir and zanamavir, would probably work to treat flu caused by the H5N1 virus, though studies still need to be done to prove that they work.” I understand its better to be safe then sorry and if it gives you piece of mind then by all means do whatever you can to make yourself at ease and happy. The CDC site itself hints at the fact that there are many “If’s” of whether this is going to really going to work. It is difficult to track or predict exactly how a virus is going to mutate. It could just as easily mutate into something harmless to humans just as soon as it mutates into something that is. As with other scenarios when the media excited people to run out and buy up all the influenza vaccines they could get there hands on when they reported a shortage occurred. What this did was prevent health care from administering the vaccines to children and elderly people who really needed the vaccine. After all isn’t the threat of people dying from influenza really isolated to those with compromised immune systems and on the upper/lower 5% of median age?

One other thing I am curious about with the Tamiflu treatment is: What is the shelf life or expiration date of the drug? I’m interested if the effectiveness of the drug diminishes over time.

At any rate I think I’ll be taking my $1000 dollars and buying some lottery tickets.

"The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations,"

I don't see that. A doc - an expert in the avian flu and pandemics - was on NPR this afternoon. When the pandemic hits 98 out of 100 people will be alive 18 months later when it's over, he said.

That is a lot of people of course. Some populations and people will be hit harder than others. But end of civilization?

The Black Death killed 1/3 to 1/2 of the people in Europe. Civilization didn't end there, it changed direction and evolved into the world we live in.

Oseltamavir phosphate is Tamiflu. I bought mine back in July and the box says expires 11/2007. Spanish flu did not hit the elderly so bad who had limited immunity from some other less deadly h1 or n1 flu that went through a long time before. It mostly took down people in their prime. My (outside the box and poorly researched) theory is it put the immune system on overdrive and they died of the immune response. Anyone want to make a conditional pledge to Space Frontier Foundation conditional on having a box of Tamiflu by the end of the SFF conference in LA next week?

"BTW, Sam, try getting a course of Tamiflu, it cannot be had for love nor money now."

One of the nice things about reading blogs is you can stay out ahead of the hurd if you broaden your reading material. I made provisions for this weeks ago on the same simplistic economic basis that Sam used, and in the full expectation that as soon as the news prompts people to act it's already too late.

Being a contrarian, I expect(ed) Tamiflu resistance to occur (as it did with Amantadine), so went with a broad spectrum antiviral instead - it's a calculated risk.

I'm with Brian.

AIDS/HIV did _more_ than decimate countries in Africa. 2% mortality isn't in the same league.

In other notes, scientists showed that they can create a functional polio (I think it was polio) virus from just knowing the genome. This was 2002-ish.

Kevin, want to share the name of the broad spectrum antiviral, or do you want to hold it so that the flu doesn't develop resistance to it too? I think any antiviral will do pretty well once Avian gets to my area. There's nowhere near enough of any antiviral on hand to affect the course of transmission much so it's unlikely to develop or keep much resistance.

BTW, human to human transmission is not inevitable and we may heave a big sigh of relief without the avian flu ever getting to the major human to human outbreak stage.

For example, Ribavirin is a broad spectrum antiviral used to treat flu outside the US. The same goes for the rest of these broad spectrum antivirals (my choice was Vira-38).

The theme here is that these things are not FDA approved so don't try to obtain them in the US, and although they are effective against normal flu, SARS, hep C and others, their effectiveness against H5N1 has yet to be determined:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content-nw/full/353/13/1374/T3

What the data says to me is that Amantadine used to work on some strains and Tamiflu appears not to on some strains. Broad spectrum antivirals were used for protecting medical workers and on patients only a handful of times, so the results are inconclusive. That's why it's a risk. I think about the scenario where Tamiflu is not effective.

OK, this subject prompted me to check up on what's happened with Vira-38 recently. I've changed my mind - I now think it's unlikely that this is anything but snake oil. That being said, I don't think stocking up on Tamiflu would help much either. I'll be back in England for Xmas, so I may look into something else then. In the mean time, I think a surgical mask is the only thing that might help. I've read reports that these would be in short supply too, but don't take my word for it.

What you need to survive is 60 days of food, a water filter, and a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition. That's our plan. If we can get some tamiflu, great -- Sam, I can't get down there, but email me and we can dicker on terms -- but isolation more than anything is key.

Another big help on this is that telecommuting really *is* possible these days for most people, even if lots of business like face time. In the case of an outbreak, people can stay home without the economy tanking completely.

Somebody mentioned "sick days?" What is that?
Oh, my pay stub says I have 16 or 18 sick days accumulated, but it's pretty common knowledge where I work that if you actually use one, you can start looking for another job. Same goes for vacation time. After all, the boss wants to be able to wave $100 bills at the taxicab.

If you panicked over the publication of the human genome, you're going to be pleased as punch to learn that the cost of sequencing a human genome is now down to $2.2 million (a factor of about a thousand decrease from the start of the HGP), and projected to fall another factor of 20 in five years, to $100,000/genome, with a target of $1000/genome in 10 years.

Within a bit more than a decade, we can expect the average person in industrialized countries to have a copy of their own genome. The social implications will be staggering.

but it's pretty common knowledge where I work that if you actually use one, you can start looking for another job. Same goes for vacation time.

Time to change jobs.

I am trying to find out where ordinary people can buy Vira 38 or Tamiflu to have on hand just in case.

Anybody know where we can find supplies?

Thx,

Is vira 38 safe to use? I know this thing has not been approved by FDA.
Well, Brian, you can purchase vira 38 at www.prbpharmaceuticals.com