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[Helgoland]

It looks (somewhat vaguely) similar chemically, so I'd guess it has the same mechanism of (in-)action.

[Knit tie]

Well, Zanamivir is also supposed to be a neuraminidase inhibitor, and seeing how well the other one works, we can make an educated guess that it's going to have the same utter lack of effect on the influenza virus. The problem is, have any papers on it's effectiveness in treating the disease  itself and not the symptoms been published? I found this paper that states that Zanamivir helps reduce the symptoms of influenza but doesn't investigate its effect on the disease duration and complications and also this paper, which claims that Zanamivir is "efficacious in the prevention of influenza" but has a significant source of random error in the described experiment as it measured the number of people who contracted influenza during the "influenza season" while taking Zanamivir and failed to consider any of the other factors that could influence the likelihood of a person contracting flu.

[palsch]

Putnam was saying that a single account (and a vague one at that) is less scientifically significant than carefully recorded large scale studies. Not to mention that a single case where treatment was supposed to prevent transmission entirely doesn't really make much sense even given the wildest claims for Tamiflu from the suppliers. I'd say it's possible given some of the fantastical statements made around it, but it's probably more a government misrepresentation (in assuring people they could deal with a pandemic) than a pharma argument.

Speaking of flu drugs, does anybody know what the scientific community think about a medicine called Relenza? Its marketed in Russia as an anti-influenza wonder cure, along with Tamiflu

Relenza is Zanamivir. It was covered in this same review and is a broadly similar drug. It seems to have fewer side effects than Tamiflu (oseltamivir in the studies) but these seems to be less data on the most at-risk groups (children and hospitalisations). So arguably a better drug if you want to cut a few hours off your time in bed with the flu (0.6 days on average, from 6.6 to 6) if you are an otherwise healthy adult, but still ineffective in a pandemic situation.

I remember the 'buttercup' thing that was marketed as a cold symptom suppressant that didn't work and, as a result, was taken of shelves.

How is this different? Is it a bigger company doing it or something?

Not quite sure what the case was there, but the only information I can find is where a suppressant was taken off shelves because it was too easy to overdose young children by ignoring stated doses. Completely different situation.

This one is a case where a drug was being pushed as a solution to an entirely valid potential problem (a flu pandemic) where it had absolutely zero value, meaning (in the UK alone) a half billion pounds worth of the stuff was stockpiled in a completely futile effort to save lives. It was pushed as such based on selective and limited information released by the producers, with other trial data being withheld even years after a call for it all to be studied. Frankly it's become a posterchild for the open-trials movement.

I'd recommend reading the entire original Guardian article I linked if you want the complete story. He gives a fairly comprehensive backgrounder. The Cochrane collaboration have also issued a press release. The bottom line is that, given the complete trial information, known only to the producing companies, the decision as to whether or not to stockpile these drugs may well have gone the other way. Projecting onto future public health decisions this has obvious and significant implications.

[Knit tie]

So Relenza works as well as Tamiflu does, nice to know. The paper I mentioned earlier is probably an attempt by the pharma companies to market it, then.

[Dutchling]

Wouldn't spending less time with the virus in you be pretty crucial during an endemic, as it would (I assume) be able to spread to less people?

[palsch]

So Relenza works as well as Tamiflu does, nice to know. The paper I mentioned earlier is probably an attempt by the pharma companies to market it, then.

Doing a quick search, it seems that trial wasn't included in the analysis. Suggests to me that the original data was never released by that one for whatever reason. Make of that what you will.

Wouldn't spending less time with the virus in you be pretty crucial during an endemic, as it would (I assume) be able to spread to less people?

The problem is that the evidence doesn't support that.

It reduces the symptoms, but not the time spent infectious. It's like popping a paracetamol. It might reduce the time you spend feeling crappy, even let you get back to work up to a day sooner (in itself not a terrible thing in a complete pandemic, where time out of work could be a significant economic cost), but doesn't change your viral levels in the slightest. The two biggest pandemic issues are mortality rate and infection rate. This doesn't seem to touch either in any significant manner.

[Vattic]

Hopefully this upsets the public enough to get things changed in the pharmaceutical industry.

It reduces the symptoms, but not the time spent infectious. It's like popping a paracetamol. It might reduce the time you spend feeling crappy, even let you get back to work up to a day sooner (in itself not a terrible thing in a complete pandemic, where time out of work could be a significant economic cost), but doesn't change your viral levels in the slightest. The two biggest pandemic issues are mortality rate and infection rate. This doesn't seem to touch either in any significant manner.

Could cost more if you go back after feeling better, but are still contagious.

[Arx]

Pitch finally drops in Queensland.

[kaijyuu]

All evidence is anecdotal. You just need a large enough sample size of anecdotal evidence.

[Osmosis Jones]

All evidence is anecdotal. You just need a large enough sample size of anecdotal evidence.

No; anecdotal "evidence" is also lacking any controls, and cannot account for confounding or compounding influences, and further is pretty well never recorded properly. If there is no structure to an experiment, and the results are only half remembered (or even if just the wrong questions are asked), it is not evidence, and it is worthless.

Experimental design is absolutely fundamental, to make sure what you're testing is what you think, and to remove confirmation bias. That's true in all fields, but is a thousand times more so in anything that directly deals with living creatures.

[kaijyuu]

Bah. Fair 'nough

[ChairmanPoo]

Tamiflu report comes under fire

[Sheb]

Tamiflu report comes under fire

They argue that the analysis — an update by Cochrane — is based on randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of the drugs that lack sufficient statistical power to allow reliable conclusions to be drawn about the effects on flu complications and hospitalizations.

Do those people even understand how statistic works? You cannot prove a treatment is useless, you can just say that the current data doesn't let you detect an effect, which is exactly what is happening. We do not know if they reduce mortality.

[ChairmanPoo]

It's more complex than that. They say that Cochrane's metaanalysis policy excludes studies that might provide interesting data. In itself it's not a bad point, for the record. Double blind trials are the "gold standard" for proof, but often, due to money,  sample size, time constraints, or circumstances, you might not have that kind of data.

[Sheb]

Yeah, that's actually a good point, although it's the only good point in the whole piece.