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Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (2722)	10/15/2005 1:51:44 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Purely an economic problem? Well in a way. After many, many years of trials of IGG therapy for HIV, Hemacare gave up because no one was interested in paying money for a therapy which provided significant side-effects without benefit. People are very small minded that way. I have no idea where you developed the idea that TNF is the super-antigen the immune system responds to in what some call a "cytokine storm". TNF is a cytokine created by the immune system in response to a super-antigen, not an antigen. The response is driven by IL-1 and TNF, but TNF is not the antigen which triggers the reaction. .

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (2722)	10/15/2005 3:50:21 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

I must apologize. I think some of my responses, to your suggestion of passive immune therapy (injections of IGG from people previously infected with H5N1), were colored by my previous years of experience dealing with the chronic misrepresentations from the quacks who run Hemacare. I have heard enough false claims for the benefits of passive immune therapy to last several lifetimes. I'm glad we never gave them a penny. But I do believe that IGG injections would be: less safe than antiviral drugs with little reason to expect better protection; rendered ineffective by viral mutation in the same way as antiviral drugs; more expensive than antiviral drugs; certainly less available than antiviral drugs by perhaps a factor of one hundred million. If a pandemic develops, I'm sure IGG injections will be trialled for health-care workers. .