Carlo Cipolla's message was that pandemic and plague is inevitable. We have experienced a long period with a below normal amount of pandemics. He liked to display contrasting charts of the incidence of plague through-out history, with man-made advances, such as improved sanitation, discovery of bacteria or antibiotics. He mischievously loved to point out that these two charts were unrelated. Plague diminished due to factors out of our control and will return in spite of those factors we control. Pathogens periodically mutate out of synchronization with their host. Climate change is one factor of many which trigger this. Bird Flu may not emerge as the next pandemic, but the next pandemic will emerge.
Vaccine: They've developed a consensus vaccine for the Bird Flu -- which I think they have more confidence in, now that they have been able to sequence the 1918 flu. Now that we know the 1918 flu was still avian in nature, they were more confident that there will be fewer changes between the virus today and its form, if and when it becomes a pandemic. What you try to do with a vaccine is target immunity against a "conserved" section of the virus. That is to say a section which doesn't seem to change as the virus mutates.
They are also going to have to move vaccine development to a recombinant gene process, away from duck eggs. You may not realize the current reliance on duck eggs means you can only make vaccine for six month out of the year. Pretty stupid when you're facing a pandemic and we have all this technology for faster and safer production that we're not currently using.
Drugs: Even if a virus is resistant to Amantadine and Tamiflu, I'd probably take Tamiflu with Relenza. Amantadine is more problematic due to the potential side-effects. I'd take some now to see what effects it had on me. Personally, I prefer the German drug Memantine, which is the metabolized form of Amantadine. I think they now sell it in the U.S. as a drug for Alzheimer's, under the name of Namenda for $60 for 60 tablets.
Multiple drug therapy prevents "escape variants" from emerging to avoid being blocked by the one drug you're using. Plus when if you got bird flu you aren't going to have the time to do PCR genotyping to find out which drugs your Bird Flu virus is resistant to, even if you have access to it.
Cytokines: Interferon-alpha is a prescription drug. Last time I checked the retail price it was about $350 for 10 million units. It is sold in a pre-mixed vial as Roferon, and as a vial of powder to be mixed with sterile water as Intron-A. To kick-start your immune system to hunt down virus.
I'd inject 5mu one day and 5mu the next. You can inject all 10mu at once but the next morning you might fantasize you were dead. Your temperature will be several degrees sub-normal and every muscle in your body will be stiff and slightly sore and you'll have absolutely no energy. Your immune system is very powerful and sophisticated. Rally it into action with interferon and it will have a priority call on all of your available energy. Just drink water and take some aspirin. It will be like accelerating three or four days of symptoms from being sick into one.
You can also potentate the quick formation of non-specific Natural Killer Cells by adding interferon-gamma sold as a vial of powder for injection under the name of Actimmune. A vial containing 100 micro-grams should be about $140. Actimmune is approved for conditions even more implausible than interferon-alpha, so some Doctors may be uncomfortable writing the scrip. If you use Actimmune, use the entire vial, or split into two doses. But you will probably appreciate having two 8 mg tablets of Zofran per day on hand to knock out the inevitable nausea.
Most molecular biologists know all of these recipes to grow and activate different parts of the immune system -- but to the average Doctor, this will all sound like "medical witchcraft".
My theology is I like things that work -- I'm not overly concerned about a seal of approval from others. Your immune system is far more sophisticated than a handful of drugs, but when faced with quickly lethal pathogens your immune system will not respond quickly enough on its own to win.
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