By: Lanny Boutin

  Drug companies make a bundle this time of year - flu season - with drugs to ease the symptoms. Now they are selling a new drug that purports to shorten the misery.
  Studies show Tamiflu (oseltamivir) manufactured by Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, reduces the duration of flu symptoms by 1.3 days, the severity of symptoms by 40 percent and secondary complications like bronchitis and sinusitis by 50 percent in otherwise healthy subjects. So is Tamiflu the miracle drug we've been waiting for?
  Tamiflu is "the first pill which treats all common strains of influenza by stopping it from replicating," claims Dr. Fred Aoki, Professor of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
  Yet other physicians are more cautious. "I think you're not alone in wondering about these new agents to treat the flu," says Dr. David Moores, chair of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta. And the College of Family Physicians wants to "let the post-marketing studies reveal the truth about Tamiflu".
  As Moores notes the flu is hard to diagnose, but Tamiflu must be started within 2 days. A New Zealand study recommends starting within 36 hours of the first symptom.
  And, "Unlike the flu shot which prevents 80 to 90 percent of flu in healthy individuals and protects against three separate strains" notes Dr. Marcia Johnson, the Deputy Medical Officer for Capital Health region, Edmonton, "Tamiflu leaves you susceptible to the other two strains".
  So should healthy individuals fork out forty-two dollars, for a drug that causes nausea or vomiting in 10 percent of patents, to shorten their symptoms by less than a day and a half?
  The manufacture thinks so, and is using scare tactics to convince the public. Their web site, www.flupill.com, claims to be "a comprehensive resource about one of the world's most deadly and dangerous diseases: the Flu, a disease which kills 6000 to 7000 Canadians in a typical winter."
  Scary stuff, for a disease with a morbidity rate of less than .01 percent, and for which Johnson notes, "virtually all deaths are people in the high risk categories".