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

To: kikogrey who wrote (2784)	10/17/2005 4:16:11 PM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 4232

Rimantadine (Flumadine) has much lower side effect profile than Amantadine. Ammantadine effects dopamine receptors, and is also used a s a treatment for Parkinson's disease. Scroll down to Table 2 which compares the two drugs. rxlist.com Amantadine profile - rxlist.com Rimantadine profile - rxlist.com

To: kikogrey who wrote (2784)	10/17/2005 4:32:09 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 4232

I really hate Amantadine. Its a wretched drug developed in the 1950s with side-effects like a heavy tranquilizer. Amantadine has also been used to treat Parkinson's tremors. A related drug Memantine has the same effects on Parkinson's without most of the weird neuro-psych side-effects. I have used Memantine as an antiviral for flu based on the fact that it works in cell culture. I had understood that Memantine was a metabolite of Amantadine, but I now understand this is wrong. I have never used Flumadine (Rimantadine), but I understand that drug also has a more favorable side-effect profile - and is actually approved as an antiviral. Apparently Memantine has the same aspartyl binding site, or something like that, on one end of the molecule - but is missing other pieces of the Amantadine molecule which interact unfavorably with other sites in the body. But since Memantine is not approved as an antiviral, I'd hate to rely on it in a life or death plague. I wish I could get a drug chemist familiar with both Memantine and Amantadine give us a definitive answer. I think the biggest problem is highlighted in this description of Amantadine: Amantadine is also used in the prevention and treatment of flu caused by infection with the influenza A virus. The exact method of action in this capacity is not clear, however, Amantadine is thought to inhibit the early stage of replication of the influenza A virus. If we don't really know how Amantadine works, there must not be definitive knowledge what part of the molecule is doing the work, thus whether Amantadine and Memantine should perform similarly based on the molecular shape. I couldn't be too difficult to find what part is binding, but it would have been nearly impossible in the 1950s when the drug was approved. .