Posted on 11/04/2005 12:56:36 PM PST by M. Espinola
The bags aren’t flying off store shelves just yet, but a Chinese herb sold throughout Boston’s Chinatown is the biggest defense against the deadly bird flu experts fear could turn into a worldwide outbreak.
Chinatown shop owners who sell star anise - a star-shaped dried fruit that smells like licorice - say it’s a household Asian spice used to add flavor when cooking.
But more important, the fruit’s seeds contain shikimic acid - the key ingredient in Tamiflu, the only known drug to fight off the lethal avian flu that has killed at least 62 people in Southeast Asia.
The coveted Tamiflu, made by Swiss drug giant Roche, attacks the flu virus and stops it from spreading throughout a person’s body. It has to be taken within 48 hours of flu symptoms. Experts fear avian flu - the lethal H5N1 strain -could mutute and spread from human to human, creating a worldwide flu outbreak. A vaccine to protect people hasn’t been developed yet.
Currently, Massachusetts hospitals have 70,000 doses of four antivirals that include Tamiflu. Ten of the prescription capsules sell for about $55.
State health officials say 2 million Bay Staters could become ill in six to eight weeks should a flu pandemic hit, but they are warning people not to stockpile antivirals on their own because they could be used “innappropriately.”
Bags of star anise - imported from China - sell in Chinatown for less than a dollar for a 3-ounce bag to $4.59 for a 12-ounce bag. The spice also comes in a powder form.
While flu fears aren’t sending flocks of people to Chinatown in search of star anise, shop owners have read about the fruit’s newfound fame in Chinese newspapers.
“It’s something you cook with, maybe one piece in a dish. It has a very strong flavor,” said Wilson Wong, a manager at Sun Sun Co.
Wong said eating a large quantity of star anise would probably upset a person’s stomach. “It’s like chewing on a cinnamon stick,” Wong said.
Experts said eating star anise in its natural form won’t necessarily protect against the flu. When the drug is manufactured, impurities are taken out. It’s also much more concentrated.
“Just because it exists in another form of nature doesn’t mean if you eat it you will get the actual product you are trying to get,” said Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association.
Brown likened it to the anticancer drug Taxol, which is extracted from the bark of the Yew tree. “You’d have to eat a whole tree to get enough Taxol to do anything and it wouldn’t be absorbed,” Brown said.
Potent spice is star of Chinese cooking
Mainly grown in China, star anise is a star-shaped herbal fruit that’s traditionally used as a spice. The eight-pronged fruit grows on small Oriental trees.
In Boston’s Chinatown, the dried stars are sold whole or in a powdered form. Supermarkets typically carry them in their dried-food section.
The powerful and pungent spice is used to marinate meat and flavor poultry and soups.
It’s also used to flavor French liqueurs.
Star anise - one of the basic spices in the Asian household - has an intense flavor and only a small amount is used when cooking.
In 2003, the U.S. government warned people not to drink teas containing star anise because they were associated with illnesses, such as seizures, among 40 people, including 15 infants. While the Chinese star anise is considered safe, the Japanese star anise is toxic. Some believe star anise treats colic.
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Sauerkraut with star anise should do the trick but it would taste wierd.
How many people have died from the bird flu world wide?
Is it over 100 yet?
I bet more people have died from chocking on Oreo cookies than from the bird flu.
It looks more like those little chocolate "stars". MMM good candy.
Hgh hgh...he said anise.
Nobody has a clue what will be effective if and when the H5N1 mutates to humans.
So I will not buy chicken salad from any asians!
"the lethal avian flu that has killed at least 62 people in Southeast Asia."
I don't get the hysteria about this disease. Like SARS the number of deaths isn't going to reach even 4 digits. The number killed each year by pneumonia, malaria and many other disease is thousands of times higher.
You mean MSG?.......
I understand your point. Thus far those which have died have been in areas where chickens, ducks and other infected birds are essentially walking around where people live. The problem is a future mutation of this Avian flu spreading human to human, but we are not at that stage - yet. I would like to know the origins of Avian flu.
Example of a "bald-faced-lie" ?
In 2003, the U.S. government warned people not to drink teas containing star anise because they were associated with illnesses, such as seizures...
question: When did a sezure become an illness? or described as a disease?
answer: When the fed govt declared that only "real doctors" could treat diseases and only the pharmaceutical companies could make drugs to treat diseases.
tin-foil-hat stuff? Nope - look it up. That is why things like alcoholism became a "disease" instead of a "condition" -- why you get the disease that causes obesity, etc. Lawyers were the instruments of this garbage that forced insurance companies to pay for things such as the "disease" of pregnancy or impotence which are conditions not diseases.
What a friendly beautiful world we eould have if lawyers were never born.
Most mothers of lawyers have probably said to themselves:
"Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself: "Lillian, you should have remained a virgin." -- Lillian Carter (mother of the 64th president, Jimmy Carter)
Too bad these did not cure Bird Flu. Talk about hoarding! :)
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