December 2, 2005

The Avian Scare: Are Profits Behind the President’s Push for Tamiflu?

The explosion of Avian virus among the world's bird population may strike fear in the hearts of Americans who watch CNN. We have all heard the reports that the virus could mutate and create a pandemic within the human population, killing millions. What we haven’t heard as much about is the money being made from the scare.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the former chairman of California biotech company Gilead Sciences and still a major shareholder in the company, has profited by millions as Gilead’s product Tamiflu has become the “single most sought after drug in the world”1 thanks to the Avian flu scare.

Tamiflu, which is owned by Gilead but produced by pharma giant Roche, is being touted as the only remedy for Avian flu, the virus which has killed about 50 percent of the people it has infected. The flu currently can’t be transmitted from person-to-person, only from bird-to-person, which makes human victims very, very rare. But the fear is that it will one day mutate into a strain that can be transmitted person-to-person.

So Congress is considering a multi-billion purchase of Tamiflu to prepare for a potential pandemic2, sending Gilead’s stock is going through the roof. Tamiflu costs $100 a dose, and the U.S. is set to buy 20 million doses. But how effective is Tamiflu when it comes to treating the flu? How does it stack up to natural therapies such as vitamin C?

According to Roche Laboratories Inc.’s own research, “There is no evidence for the efficacy of TAMIFLU in any illness other than influenza types A and B.”3 In clinical trials, Tamiflu only reduced the median time of flu symptoms for 1.3 days for influenza A and B. Although Tamiflu’s status as the world’s most sought-after drug has been brought about because of the Avian flu scare, no test results are available on its effectiveness against the bird flu, which has yet to mutate and crossover into a A or B-type influenza.

Critics like Dr. Joseph Mercola call Tamiflu “a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations.”4

Studies sponsored decades ago -- before the profits of pharmaceutical companies like Gilead skewed the direction of medical research away from nutrients and toward pharmaceutical drugs -- have indicated that vitamin C is more effective against influenza than Tamiflu. For instance, scientist Vargas Magne treated 130 cases of influenza using 45 grams of ascorbic acid in 1963. Of the 130 cases, 114 recovered while 16 did not respond.5

While Tamiflu does not provide any protection from actually receiving the Avian flu, or any other form of influenza for that matter, research indicates that vitamin C boosts the immune system. In 1954, dockworkers given 100 mg of vitamin C each day for ten months caught influenza 28% less often than coworkers who were not taking it. If the vitamin C users did develop influenza, the average duration of the illness was 10% less than in those not taking the vitamin.6

President George W. Bush compared the threat of Avian flu to the 1918-19 flu pandemic that killed millions to bolster his case that the U.S. should spend billions purchasing Tamiflu. But in his 1986 book How to Live Long and Feel Better, Linus Pauling also cited the 1918-19 pandemic -- as evidence that vitamin C can spare lives during a health disaster.

“The best protection against the flu is one’s natural defense mechanisms,” he wrote. “These defense mechanisms seem to have protected about one-sixth of the people during the 1918-19 pandemic, presumably for the most part those people whose defense mechanisms were operating most effectively. There is much evidence … that a good intake of vitamin C improves the functioning of the natural defense mechanisms to such an extent that a much larger fraction of the population would resist the infection.”7

Avian doesn’t mark the first time that a health scare has been drummed up to promote pharmaceutical drugs. As Mathias Rath, M.D. noted during the last medical scare – over the SARS virus in 2003 – vitamin C offers the best defense because it strengthens the immune system, but isn’t promoted by the government. “SARS is simply a viral disease that, just like any other viral disease, can be largely contained and prevented by optimum amounts of ascorbate (vitamin C) and certain other natural molecules. But these molecules are not patentable and therefore not promoted.”8

Dr. Pauling, who studied the effectiveness of vitamin C with Dr. Rath, recommended that people take at least 1 gram or more of vitamin C per hour to avoid influenza. "The measures to be taken for the prevention and treatment of influenza through use of vitamin C are essentially the same as for the common cold. For most people the regular intake of 1 gram (g) or more per hour should be begun," he wrote.9

Dr. Rath discovered that viruses also spread by the degradation of collagen, and that this degradation can be prevented with the use of the essential amino acid lysine along with vitamin C. The two nutrients work in synergy to create the best defense against influenza.10

1 http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/
2 ibid
3 http://www.tamiflu.com/hcp/treatment/treat_index.asp
4 http://www.mercola.com/2005/oct/25/
rumsfeld_to_profit_from_avian_flu_hoax.htm#
5 Magne, R. Vargas (1963) Vitamin C in treatment of influenza. El Dia Medico 35:1714-1715.
6 Renker K, Wegner S. Vitamin C-Prophylaxe in der Volkswertf Stralsund. Deutsche Gesundheitswesen 1954;9:702–6.
7 Pauling, L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better. New York, NY. Freeman & Company; 1986.
8 “A People’s Agenda,” An Interview with Matthias Rath, M.D., April 2003, http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/pdf-files/interview/interview_english.pdf
9 Pauling, L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better. New York, NY. Freeman & Company; 1986.
10 Rath, M. Cancer. Santa Clara, CA. Dr. Rath Education Services USA; 2002.