New Light on SARS Virus

[Guest guest]

This news item came across my desk. It discusses a feature of the

SARS pathology, immune system over-reaction, that may actually be

better suited for treatment by CM.

 

Jim Ramholz

 

 

The virus that causes SARS does not change quickly, which may ease

the search for a vaccine, and the lung damage suffered by patients

could be due to a severe immune system response, scientists said on

Friday.

 

Two research papers published online by The Lancet medical journal

shed new light on the respiratory virus that has killed more than

500 people and infected over 7,300 since it first emerged in China

late last year.

 

A genetic study of 14 samples of SARS -- a new member of the

coronavirus family -- taken from patients in Singapore, Hong Kong,

Canada, Vietnam and Beijing and Guangzhou in China shows it is quite

stable.

 

'Our results show several molecular facets of the SARS coronavirus

pertinent to the public health management of this epidemic,' said Dr

Edison Liu, of Singapore's Genome Institute.

 

Genetic stability is a good thing because if the virus does not

mutate rapidly it is less likely to evolve new strains and it may be

possible to make a vaccine to combat it.

 

But it could also be bad news because it means the virus is well

suited to its human hosts and probably will not mutate into a less

virulent form.

 

Liu and his team said their comparison of the genetic sequences of

the virus samples reveals the main components were mainly unchanged

as it spread through different countries.

 

'The stability was somewhat surprising,' Professor Earl Brown, a

virologist at the University of Ottawa in Canada who reviewed the

research, told Reuters.

 

'It was gratifying to see that one could see inherent changes and

one could track transmission between certain countries,' he added.

 

Coronaviruses can have a high rate of genetic mutation. SARS is

highly virulent, has an estimated death rate of up to 55 percent in

older patients and appears to be suited to maintain human

transmission with the genes it has.

 

Scientists at the University Hong Kong, who studied 75 SARS cases

from the outbreak at Amoy Garden housing block in Hong Kong, believe

lung damage in patients is not caused by the replication of the

virus but may be due to an immune system reaction.

 

Professor Yuen Kwok-yung and his team followed up the patients for

three weeks and noticed a similar pattern of illness. Eighty percent

had a worsening lung condition after one week and 20 percent

developed acute respiratory problems in the third week and required

respirators.

 

'The progression of the disease to respiratory failure might not be

associated with uncontrolled viral replication but may, in fact, be

immunopathological in nature,' he said.

[Guest guest]

I'd also like to alert CHA members to an article in today's Wall Street

Journal, section B page 1, on Chinese medicine's response to SARS

( " SARS Brings New Respect to Chinese Herbal Medicine " ). In all, a

positive article. There may be a link on their website to the article,

but it requires a subscription, so there is no point in my providing a

link.

 

 

On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 09:19 PM, James Ramholz wrote:

 

> This news item came across my desk. It discusses a feature of the

> SARS pathology, immune system over-reaction, that may actually be

> better suited for treatment by CM.

>

> Jim Ramholz

[Guest guest]

> I'd also like to alert CHA members to an article in today's Wall Street

> Journal, section B page 1, on Chinese medicine's response to SARS

> ( & quot;SARS Brings New Respect to Chinese Herbal Medicine & quot;). & nbsp;

> In all, a positive article. & nbsp; There may be a link on their website

> to the article, but it requires a subscription, so there is no point in

> my providing a link.

>

>

 

 

 

Article included below >>>>

 

SARS Brings New Respect To Chinese Herbal Medicine

By TRISH SAYWELL and LARA WOZNIAK

Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

Could cow-urine extract mixed with bull-horn shavings, mint leaves and

melon peels help treat SARS?

 

Some in China's southern Guangdong province think so. Doctors at the

epicenter of the outbreak of the deadly disease known as severe acute

respiratory

 

syndrome are reporting some success treating patients with a combination

of traditional Chinese herbal medicine and Western drugs.

 

As conventional treatments prove elusive and health experts question risky

antiviral and steroid combinations being administered in places like Hong

Kong,

 

traditional Chinese medicine is asserting itself in a way it hasn't for

years. Thus far, there is no clinical evidence that cow urine extract,

pounded almonds or

 

ginger do any good against stubborn viruses like the one that causes SARS.

But as far as anyone can tell, such treatments don't hurt either. And

there is

 

anecdotal evidence that they help alleviate some SARS symptoms.

 

" I do believe some formulas might work in terms of relieving the symptoms

and may even enhance the body's defense system, " says Cheng Yung-chi, a

 

professor of pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine. " As far

as their direct antiviral properties are concerned, that is questionable.

But as long as

 

they are handled with care, they should be tried. "

 

That seems to be the reasoning of Hong Kong health officials. The

ordinarily conservative-minded medical community in the former British

colony agreed last

 

week to allow hospitalized SARS patients access to traditional Chinese

remedies after conventional medication is administered. Doctors say such

medicines

 

haven't been used in Hong Kong hospitals since before World War II, when

they were banned by the occupying Japanese as unscientific.

 

Professor Gong Shusheng, a professor at the Beijing University of

Traditional , says traditional Chinese treatments in

Guangdong have been

 

" pretty good " at reducing fevers, relieving respiratory distress and

reducing the side-effects of Western medicines, such as hormone

treatments.

 

While the ancient field of traditional Chinese medicine is filled with

anecdotal evidence that herbs can help relieve symptoms of influenza and

other diseases,

 

very few traditional Chinese medicines have been subjected to the kind of

rigorous scientific study applied to Western medicines. But that isn't

stopping even

 

those trained in Western medicine from looking to herbs for answers. The

Institute of at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and

the School

 

of at the Hong Kong Baptist University have handed out

free herbal drinks to medical workers to stave off SARS infection.

 

One drink supplied to 3,800 health-care workers is based on two herbal

remedies popular for the past 1,000 years. The substance is a mixture of

two

 

anti-influenza remedies blending, among other things, mulberry leaves and

chrysanthemum flowers. " We are using herbs to try curbing the disease at

an early

 

stage and to support the body's defense, " says Leung Ping-chung, chairman

of the Institute of .

 

Chinese healers look at SARS as a " hot " condition, brought on by the

wetness or humidity of spring. Thus, the types of herbal cocktails

administered to patients

 

are cooling ones. In Guangdong, traditional cocktails were effective in

reducing fevers from 40 degrees Celsius to normal within two days -- much

faster than

 

conventional Western drugs, says Dr. Lin Lin, who also uses traditional

Chinese medicine, in a recent documentary on Chinese television. The

Guangdong

 

Provincial Hospital for Traditional , where she is

associate director of respiratory diseases, has treated more than 100 SARS

patients.

 

Just how Chinese herbal medicine works isn't clear. There is no

standardization or regulation for the manufacture of traditional Chinese

remedies, and even

 

within the same species of herb or plant, there can be dramatic

variations. Some herbs may be toxic and some have been shown to interfere

with the way

 

conventional Western drugs work.

 

But there are growing efforts to give scientific backbone to some of the

claims of traditional Chinese medicine. Yale's Dr. Cheng, for instance, is

testing a

 

formula consisting of four herbs discovered 1,800 years ago that he

believes may help to relieve the side effects associated with chemotherapy

drugs used to

 

fight cancer. " If you think there is some usefulness in medicine, then you

try to figure it out, " he says. " Don't be a rejectionist, which is very

common in

 

mainstream medicine. "

 

Still, traditional Chinese medicine has a long way to go before it

convinces the mainstream medical community that it works. Paul S. Lietman,

a professor at the

 

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, says that

studies of the use of traditional Chinese herbs to treat depression,

memory loss and

 

prostate cancer haven't shown any of them to be of much value.

 

Indeed, even some of the Asians closest to SARS aren't convinced. In

Singapore -- a predominantly ethnic Chinese city-state -- the ministry of

health says it

 

won't consider traditional Chinese medicine as a complementary treatment

for SARS.

 

But many Chinese are more apt to listen to their grandmothers than they

are to health officials or scientists in white coats.

Sammy Ho, managing director of Wing Tak Hall, a Hong Kong business that

sells over-the-counter Chinese medicine products, says sales of products

that are

 

supposed to strengthen the immune system have increased as much as 50%.

 

In Beijing, newspapers are publishing local herbal recommendations,

prompting even more business in herbal medicine shops. And a

Shanghai-based

 

pharmaceutical-industry executive says prices of some of the ingredients

used in the Guangdong Provincial Hospital for Traditional

have shot

 

up since the information was first distributed among traditional Chinese

medical hospitals. " Every day [sARS] creates 10 millionaires, " he says.

 

--Ben Dolven contributed to this article.