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If birds hosting flu virus are exposed to the waterborne pollutant, they might develop drug-resistant strains, chemists worry The premier flu-fighting drug is contaminating rivers downstream of sewage-treatment facilities, researchers in Japan confirm. The source: urinary excretion by people taking oseltamivir phosphate, best known as Tamiflu. Concerns are now building that birds, which are natural influenza carriers, are being exposed to waterborne residues of Tamiflu’s active form and might develop and spread drug-resistant strains of seasonal and avian flu. For their new study, Gopal Ghosh and his colleagues at Kyoto University sampled water discharged from three local sewage treatment plants...

Just got back from the doctor, and my 13 year old tested positive for swine flu.THE GOVERNMENT has issued orders to all doctors to no longer treat patients with Tamiflu unless they are bad enough to be admitted to the hospital. They don't want to run out.Thankfully, my doc gave it to her anyway, so I am hoping I don't have to worry about her getting that bad.So, I will be giving periodic first hand accounts of the progression of this thing so that FReepers can hear it first hand, rather than relying on the media to tell you how...

Canada has recorded a case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu virus, in a Quebec man who had been given the drug to prevent infection. Meanwhile, Japan revealed Tuesday it had found a second such case of Tamiflu resistance, in a person who has no ties to the country’s earlier reported case.

U.S. health officials are stepping up testing of swine flu cases for Tamiflu resistance, now that an American has come down with a resistant strain. A California teenager was diagnosed with swine flu last month after arriving in Hong Kong on June 11, and has since recovered. The 16-year-old is a San Francisco resident and likely was infected in the United States, health officials said Tuesday. Her illness was mild, but noteworthy. She's just the third person in the world to be diagnosed with a strain resistant to Tamiflu, the primary pharmaceutical weapon against the new virus. The other two...

Tamiflu comes from an herb To live in a world that's saturated with natural anti-viral medicine and then not even acknowledge it in the media is beyond bizarre. It's Twilight Zone-like. It's like we've been teleported to an alternate universe where anti-viral plants have disappeared... or at least everyone is pretending they have. Where do you think Tamiflu comes from, by the way? It's extracted from the Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called Star Anise. It's one of hundreds of different anti-viral herbs found in Chinese Medicine, not to even mention anti-viral herbs from South America, North America, Australia, Africa and...

U.S. health officials say almost 100% of the type A H1N1 strain showed resistance to the leading antiviral drug. So far, the influenza season has been mild. Tamiflu, the most commonly used influenza antiviral and the mainstay of the federal government's emergency drug stockpile, no longer works for the dominant flu strain circulating in much of the country, government officials said Tuesday. Of samples tested since October, almost 100% of the strain -- known as type A H1N1 -- showed resistance to Tamiflu. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines to physicians in December. Doctors...

From: Recombinomics Commentary 16:53 March 24, 2009 Excerpt: "Reports from Taiwan also indicated that vaccines failed in 70% of the H1N1 cases and Tamiflu resistant H1N1 dominated in collections after December, 2008.Read more at Greg's BlogArticle continues: "Deb Brandt, a physician assistant at Rapid City Medical Center's Urgent Care, said that on Wednesday, the clinic checked in 106 people in 11 hours. There were cases of strep, mono and plenty of influenza. Three other Rapid City clinics report a similarly busy schedule. "Brandt said about half of her patients who tested positive for influenza had their shots, but "most of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Virtually all cases of the most common strain of flu circulating in the United States now resist the main drug used to treat it, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday. CDC researchers said 98 percent of all flu samples from the H1N1 strain were resistant to Roche AG's Tamiflu, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection. Four patients infected with the resistant strain have died, including two children. This year, H1N1 is the most common strain of flu in the United States, although the flu season is a mild...

Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why. The problem is not yet a public health crisis because this has been a below-average flu season so far and the chief strain circulating is still susceptible to other drugs — but infectious disease specialists are worried nonetheless. Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed...

U.S. health authorities alerted doctors Friday that a prevalent strain of the flu is resistant to Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu antiviral drug, and that doctors should add another drug or use an alternative to treat such cases. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention said preliminary data from a limited number of states showed that the prevalence of a type known as influenza A H1N1, some of which are resistant to Tamiflu, is high. As a result, the CDC is now recommending that patients suspected of having this strain receive GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Relenza antiviral drug, or that patients take a...

A small but significant percentage of the main influenza virus causing illness this winter in Europe, Canada and the United States has a mutation that makes it resistant to the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Scientists said they were surprised by the finding because they had believed that mutations of this type generally made the virus less potent and less easily spread among people. The predominant influenza virus circulating this winter is influenza A/H1N1. The Tamiflu-resistant form of the virus, known as influenza A(H1N1 H274Y), has been found with varying frequency in various areas of four...

Associated Press Government health regulators recommended adding label precautions about neurological problems seen in children who have taken flu drugs made by Roche and GlaxoSmithKline. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday released its safety review of Roche's Tamiflu and Glaxo's Relenza. Next week, an outside group of pediatric experts is scheduled to review the safety of several such drugs when used in children. FDA began reviewing Tamiflu's safety in 2005 after receiving reports of children experiencing neurological problems, including hallucinations and convulsions. Twenty-five patients under age 21 have died while taking the drug, most of them in Japan. Five...

Flu viruses may be developing drug resistance Updated Tue. Apr. 3 2007 5:22 PM ET Canadian Press TORONTO -- There is new and unwelcome evidence that flu viruses can evolve to develop resistance to the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza and that those less susceptible viruses can spread from person to person. Japanese researchers reported Tuesday that influenza B viruses recovered from several people who had not taken flu drugs were partially resistant to Tamiflu, Relenza or both, suggesting these less susceptible viruses were spreading at low levels in their communities. It had been hoped that viruses that developed resistance...

Japan orders probe into Tamiflu after teenager user jumps to his death 02.27.07, 5:47 AM ET TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - The government has ordered an investigation after a boy who took Tamiflu made by Swiss firm Roche, jumped to his death from the building he lived in, officials said. The 14-year-old boy was pronounced dead Tuesday after leaping from the 11th floor of a condominium in the northern Japanese city of Sendai, police said. 'According to our information, the boy woke up in the middle of night after taking the medicine,' a local police spokesman. A short time later the youth...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Patients who take Tamiflu should be closely monitored for signs of abnormal behavior, health officials said Monday in announcing an updated label for the flu drug. The added precaution comes after reports of more than 100 new cases of delirium, hallucinations and other unusual psychiatric behavior in children treated with the drug. Most were Japanese children. The Food and Drug Administration said a relationship between the drug and the behavior had not been established and that the updated label was "intended to mitigate a potential risk associated with Tamiflu." It recommends that close monitoring begin immediately...

WASHINGTON - Doctors and parents should watch for signs of bizarre behavior in children treated with the flu drug Tamiflu, federal health officials suggested Monday in citing an increasing number of such cases from overseas. Food and Drug Administration officials still don't know if the more than 100 new cases, including three deaths from falls, are linked to the drug or to the flu virus — or a combination of both. Most of the reported cases involved children. Still, FDA staff suggested updating Tamiflu's label to recommend that all patients, especially children, be closely monitored while on the drug. They...

ALERT - Vitamin A is probably simple antidote to bird flu, mainstream literature shows Hold those billions, Vitamin A blocks bird flu lung devastationNew AIDS Review - 11/20/2005All the panic over H5N1 seems a little overblown when you consider that the virus has been around for eight years at least without morphing into a deadly human version that can sweep the globe from human to human. The very same H5N1 was the cause of the "Avian flu" outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997. But just to reduce the hysteria a few more notches, we have decided to relent on our...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The U.N. health agency described the deaths of six Indonesian family members from bird flu as the most important development in the spread of the virus since 2003, saying it is investigating whether the disease has spread from person to person. "We have a team down there, they are examining what is going on and they can't find an animal source of this infection," said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the Western Pacific region of the World Health Organization. "This is the first time that we've been completely stumped" by a source for the infection, he said. Six...

Making oseltamivir, the antiviral drug that has become the world's first-line defense if an influenza pandemic strikes, is a long and complicated process. But in papers published online yesterday by the Journal of the American Chemical Society, two research teams say they have found alternative synthetic routes that could make oseltamivir--better known by its brand name Tamiflu--easier to produce and perhaps affordable for developing countries too. More than 65 countries have ordered stockpiles of oseltamivir; Roche, the Swiss company that produces it, is rapidly ramping up production capacity, and generic drug makers have started producing oseltamivir as well (ScienceNOW, 21...

    Bird flu is on the wing in Asia, Africa and Europe. It is only a matter of time before it arrives in North America. Yet the supply of effective drugs everywhere is undermined by a plague of counterfeits for which governments are to blame.     The deadly H5N1 strain of the virus may not mutate into a form that can be transmitted between people, but people are right to be worried. The best drugs we have may be rendered useless by counterfeiters and complicit officials.     Fake drugs are a booming business in many poorer parts of the world, worth about $35...