Slashdot Log In
Cod Enzyme Kills Bird Flu
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jan 17, 2007 09:47 PM
from the fish-your-flu-away dept.
from the fish-your-flu-away dept.
Jon Golden writes "An Icelandic cod enzyme might be the cure for bird flu. A recent experiment, which the Icelandic company Ensímtaekni hf. took part in, indicates that in five minutes, the isolated fish enzyme killed 99 percent of H5N1 viruses.
The killer enzyme, called penzim, was extracted from the intestines of cod by Ensímtaekni and is currently being developed for beauty products and various types of medicine. The experiment on the H5N1 virus was conducted in London.
CEO of Ensímtaekni and biochemist Jón Bragi Bjarnason said he is very excited about the results of the bird flu experiment.
"People have feared that the bird flu virus will change into a human flu virus and now we have a likely cure in case that happens."
Bjarnason also believes that penzim might prove a cure for common flu and cold, eczema in children and arthritis."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Cure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Cure? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a wild assed guess, it is so successful in the first place because it is probably some fairly potent and fairly non selective protease. The fact that it kills viruses in a test tube means almost nothing. For this to be effective as a drug it must be able to kill these viruses in a living organism and it must do so while producing minimal damage to said living organism.
Parent
Re:Cure? (Score:5, Informative)
If proven effective in the real world then it is still a cure, saying otherwise is like saying "Why bother trying to cure the disease, everyone is going to die someday".
Parent
Re:Cure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's the first emergence of an unknown virus that is
Re:Cure? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an infectious threshold that a contagion needs to pass before it can spread through a population as an epidemic. If used properly, a drug that is 99% effective can nip it in the bud before the epidemic stage provides an opportunity for widspread replication and the chances for mutation.. If it doesn't reproduce much in the wild, it doesn't get a whole lot of opportunity to mutate into something dangerous. Used incorrectly, or abused in obviously stupid ways to serve other ends, be it political or otherwise, resistance *will* be a problem in the future.
The problem of non-human hosts (birds, obviously, but also swines), however, complicates the picture a bit. Using drugs to treat human cases goes a long way toward keeping an epidemic in check. This is especially true considering how mobile we are in this day and age. The agriculture industry has also had mixed success in keeping domestic livestock safe. But what worries a lot of experts are migratory wild birds. They are the one variable we have almost no control over.
On a slightly different note, the flu seems to be giving up a lot of its secrets. There is a timely article [yahoo.com] from reuters via Yahoo that highlights some new (?maybe old but uncirculated in the mainstream press?) information researchers have uncovered about the 1918 flu and the similarities to H5N1.
As such, maybe this drug, if developed and used properly, is enough to deal with the problem. Kill 99% with the drug. Let the immune system, unmolested and unprovoked, deal with the remaining 1%.Parent
Re:Cure? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, a 1-in-10 dilution of chlorine-based household bleach will kill 100% of the germs. But what's good for treating biohazard might not be good for treating children.
I know it's Troll Wednesday, but what the hell...
Parent
Re:Cure? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually there is a medical tool that can do nearly as well as the bleach solution without killing the patient. Specifically if you take a 910nm YAG pulsed 1/10,000 sec 10 times per sec at about 250 watts for a duration of about 30 seconds and applied locally to the site of the infection, very nearly any virus or bacteria known and even some other agents can be blasted into oblivion while assisting the life processes of the human tissues surrounding.
No this isn't an American technology. No it isn't fiction or fantasy. The process has been tested against even HIV and Hep C. It works. The WOW that it is applies to a wide range of medical problems. The specific process is known as cold lasers in sports medicine. Yes you could have the flu and be treated in a few seconds without drug side effects. I personally have seen this technology resolve a MRSA cyst about 1/2 the size of a large egg over night. The amount of treatment time was 30 seconds. The cyst was in an 82yo female who had acquired this post surgical and it was treated unsuccessfully with 30 day of intense IV medication including Vancomycin and other meds.
This works by driving the life function of the human cells directly by photosynthetic process. It would appear that the process also overdrives the material in the infectious agents. Thus the process causes health in 2 ways. It will remove edema (swelling) in a few seconds. It causes very fast healing. It relieves most pain issues in seconds of at most over a course of 3 or 4 treatments a few hours apart. It is so effective it should be required as a post-op treatment for patients. It is a treatment that is so effective it can literally stop the flu or even destroy deep in tissue infections like those hard to treat sinus infections with nearly instant effect. As such the Bird Flu and any other flu epidemic should be a few laser pulses from oblivion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Act of Cod? (Score:5, Funny)
ineed! (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but... (Score:3, Funny)
That's all great, but I've been using Dr. Wurster's Miracle Decoction for 70 years. I'll be darned if I'll switch unless it also cures migraines and decapitation, at least.
WTF??? (Score:3, Insightful)
The amazing Cod (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A few interesting things about the bird flu (Score:4, Interesting)
There are at least a dozen _known_ diseases that will just as gleefully sicken or even kill the human animal.
Why we're so upset about the bird flu and what makes it special, I don't know, except of course that the entire
subject is pushed into our faces and through our ears nonstop through the media. (Just to forestall some
comments: The rabies virus could mutate too and become airborne for all we know. Gnade uns Gott should that ever
happen).
One thing that is however noteworthy about the bird flu (wohoo!) is that "Tamiflu" the experimental drug that is
supposed to alleviate its symptoms was developed by Gilead Sciences, the company Donald Rumsfeld was Chairman
of the Board of during 1997 until being sworn in as Secretary of Defense in 2001. Another noteworthy thing is
that the United States Government has purchased and stockpiled large amounts of this largely unproven medication
and guess who still owns stock in Gilead? (La Rouche pharmaceuticals produces the drug but it pays royalties to
Gilead).
Re:A few interesting things about the bird flu (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty fucking awful example to pick.
It is bloody unlikely that rabies will mutate into an airborne virus anytime soon. It would essentially have to become a completely different virus.
Influenza, on the other hand, is known for it's amazing mutational and recombinational "ability".
Rabies is not known for causing great pandemics associated producing very substantial mortality.
Influenza, on the other hand, is known for causing great pandemics producing very substantial mortality.
Rabies does not truly have the potential to create massive epidemics in livestock animals which may serve as a reservoirs from whence a human disease outbreak may start.
Avian influenza, on the other hand, does.
Rabies does not truly have the potential to create massive epidemics in wild animals which may serve as widespread infectious sources for domestic animals and as a reservoir from whence a human disease outbreak may start.
Avian influenza, on the other hand, does.
Animal infected by rabies are very rarely (if ever) the types to engage in the sorts of great migrations which may sometimes literally span the globe.
Animals infected by avian influenza, on the other hand, sometimes are.
I could probably go on (or maybe not --but I'm not about to try).
Parent
Flu is newsworthy because it's killed before (Score:4, Informative)
One reason epidemiologists are especially concerned about avian flu because flu pandemics have killed tens of millions of people before [wikipedia.org]. This was in 1918 when the public health system was less developed, but population densities and the mobility of the human population are much greater today.
Another respondent has already detailed the other reasons why an avian flu is logistically more threatening. Your political/conspiracy theory may be completely true and valid, but the fact remains that people are concerned about the flu rather than ebola or airborne rabies because it's the disease that has been observed to kill in great numbers in the recent, documented past.
The fact that Donald Rumsfeld might be profiteering from the hype [globalresearch.ca] does not mean that avian flu is not a real threat.
Parent
This May Bring Back The Old Cure-All (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This May Bring Back The Old Cure-All (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Beautiful (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Birds/Fish (Score:5, Funny)
Give the ability to fight off bird flu to an animal most unlikely to encounter a bird.
Lucky fishes..
Well that explains it (Score:5, Funny)