Shocked we are to discover that many of the flue strains making the rounds this year are resistant to Tamiflu. Here's an NPR piece about it.
This is a Bad Thing(tm) because we've stockpiled Tamiflu around the world just in case Bird Flu (insert dramatic music cue here) makes the jump to an easily transferable human strain. Now there is the possibility that it'll also be resistant to the drug.
As I said to my wife last night, "Shocked, shocked I am to hear that evolution has occurred in nature."
So, Mr Lame Duck President, how's that whole "teach the controversy" and "don't believe in evolution" thing working out for you?
4 comments:
Yeah. Shocked. That's what I am.
Janiece, yeah. We were watching this on the news last night, and I'll admit going from about 30% resistant to over 85% resistant is a big jump, but it's not like there weren't the sign of increasing resistance.
Also one of the problems is the mostly likely candidate for bird flu to mix with to "learn" human vectors is also becoming resistant to Tamiflu. The good news is that the other two drugs (whose names escape me at the moment) aren't showing the same resistance. However, that could be because they are less used at this point (because we have all those stocks of Tamiflu just waiting there).
My sense of poetic justice wishes that the Tamiflu-resistant viruses would only attack people who don't believe in evolution and wouldn't affect the rest of us. Sadly, viruses don't believe in poetic justice and would not discriminate.
So, if a strain of Tamiflu-resistant virus should spread among humans, a large number of innocent people will die because of a smaller number of backward people who managed to be in power at a time when they could do a lot of damage.
What does it say about the state of this nation that none of us are really shocked by this? Makes me sad to think that I live in the world's largest banana republic.
Hey Sheila, yep, that been a problem with flue viruses is that they have no sense of moral obligation or poetic justice. It is to sigh.
And I think it's apt to say that for the past eight years if anybody shouted into this country we could reply, "We're all monkeys here."
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