Statins and bird flu??

Heart drugs might provide bird flu weapon: expert

The world's top-selling drugs, cholesterol-lowering statins, might provide a way to treat feared bird flu, according to a doctor and retired drug company executive who is trying to get the researchers to study the possibility.
Antivirals that affect the influenza virus are in short supply, and it will be years before vaccine makers can ramp up capacity enough to immunize the world's population against a pandemic flu.
But what if there was a cheap and widely available drug that helped treat the flu's worst symptoms and possibly save lives?
Evidence suggests that statin drugs, designed to lower cholesterol, might help turn a potentially deadly infection into a milder disease, according to Dr. David Fedson, who thinks world health authorities ought to take a harder look at the possibility.
"Generic statins are available in virtually every country," said Fedson, a retired U.S. physician living in France.
"You'll be able to take five days of statins in India for less than a dollar," Fedson, who was also director of medical affairs at Aventis Pasteur (now French drug company Sanofi Aventis), said in a telephone interview.
"We have something that conceivably could save tens of thousands of lives. This research is so important that we cannot afford not to take it."
Fedson, an expert on vaccination, cites several recent studies that show that statins reduce inflammation. Designed to lower cholesterol, the drugs work on several biological processes and may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, some cancers, and multiple sclerosis.
In January, researchers in Canada reported that statins act against sepsis, a dangerous blood infection and a 2005 study published in the journal Respiratory Research found the death rate was 64 percent lower in pneumonia patients who had been taking statins.
IMMUNE STORM
Fedson cites yet other studies that suggest strongly that people who are infected with avian influenza have an immune system overreaction known as a cytokine storm.
Their immune system signals chemicals rush to fight off the alien virus, causing an inflammation of the lungs and other organs that may be what kills them.
"It's an idea, just an idea and it needs to be substantiated with both cellular-based and animal-based studies," Fedson said. "We need to do it and we need to do it fast."
He is getting some attention.
Fedson presented his idea last week to the Congress of Infectious Diseases in Lisbon, Portugal, and is to speak to a bird flu conference next week at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He also has a paper in next month's issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Statins -- which include Pfizer Inc.'s $10 billion-a-year Lipitor, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Pravachol and Merck and Co. Inc.'s Zocor -- are the world's best-selling drugs, taken by millions to reduce the risk of heart attack.
Experts say a pandemic of some sort of influenza is inevitable.
The H5N1 avian influenza sweeping countries in Asia and also affecting Europe and Africa is considered the most likely candidate. So far it has rarely infected people, but has killed 130 out of 228 infected and just a few mutations would turn it into a form that could be passed easily from one person to another.
If this happens in the next few years, the World Health Organization and other experts agree the world is very poorly prepared and that millions could die.
A WHO spokesman said the agency had no immediate comment on Fedson's work, and spokespeople for companies that make statins said they had not looked into the possibility of testing the drugs in influenza patients.


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posted by HeartSmart at 8:15 AM