Life-Saving H1N1 Drug Unavailable to Most
www.cbsnews.com...
(CBS) New doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine will arrive across the country this week. But what about those who are already infected?
The virus can make healthy people suddenly very ill. Some doctors say they'd use an experimental drug to help rescue patients on the brink - if only
they were allowed, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports.
Last month, 51-year-old John Boudrot was so sick from the H1N1 virus he was in intensive care, on a ventilator and suffering organ failure. Not in 30
years of practice had his doctor seen a patient decline so quickly - from perfect health to the doorstep of death.
"He was going on a curve like this," said Dr. Robin Dretler, indicating a steep decline. "Life in immediate danger."
As a last resort, Dretler got the Food and Drug Administration's permission to try a promising, but still experimental, drug called Peramivir.
Peramivir is an antiviral drug like Tamiflu and Relenza. But unlike those drugs, it's being specifically studied as an intravenous treatment for
critically ill patients. Human clinical trials in the U.S. and Japan have called Peramivir safe and effective.
Sure enough, four days after John Boudrot got Peramivir he began to improve.
"I am a lucky son of gun to be here, no question about it," Boudrot said.
Dretler said he strongly believes it was Peramivir that made the difference.
The FDA tells CBS News that it has approved 20 similar requests for experimental Peramivir nationwide under laws allowing the "compassionate use" of
unapproved drugs.
Patient records are not public, but an unofficial CBS News count found at least eight critically ill patients who recovered or are still recovering on
Peramivir. We found two who died.
But among the survivors is 11-year-old year Dalila Gonzalez, who was deathly ill with H1N1. She's an important case because of the alarmingly high
number of children, 86, killed so far by the flu.
"She rapidly improved," said her doctor, Robert Armstrong. "The pneumonia got better every day."
But as more patients die in intensive care, doctors want the FDA to speed up the delivery of emergency anti viral drugs. The current process for
"compassionate use" takes at least four hours of paperwork time from doctors trying to treat sick patients.
The FDA has said it will consider what's called an EUA, or Emergency Use Authorization, for Peramivir, allowing the government to stockpile the drug
and reduce the most paperwork. The FDA says the changes are coming "fairly soon" - but doctors say they're needed now. Sometimes, Armstrong said,
"it's only a matter of hours to keep them alive."
As John Boudrot left Dekalb Medical center near Atlanta, it was clear every nurse who cared for him had expected the worst.
"This is the best part about getting better," he said, hugging the nurses.
Experts caution its too early to see Peramivir as a miracle drug, but there's no doubting the drugs connection to some miraculous results.
There it is Kiddies...
A new ~Treatment~ you'll never see...
Guess who has access to this???
Yer thoughts?
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reply to post by Hx3_1963
Absolute propoganda.
Hook line and sinker.
Swine flu strains have never changed.
Follow the money.
Not just my thoughts, TRUTH.
Theres a tonne of corruption involved with this swine flu nonsense but in my opinion nothing compared to the scale of corrupt information thats being
fed into peoples heads.
[edit on 20-10-2009 by XXXN3O]
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For the medicine to be "life-saving", we would have to be talking about something other than swine flu, as said above. And swine flu would have to
be deadly, which it is not, to anyone without deeper complications/compromised immune systems...
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Don't shoot the Messenger!
Just passing MSM Headlines and asking for input...
Guess ask and you shall receive!
It does seem a ~Slant~ on more ~Gouging~, but, there might be something to it?
[edit on 10/20/2009 by Hx3_1963]
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reply to post by Hx3_1963
Its the message, not the messenger.
At least from my crosshairs.
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