The Speculist

This morning Wired News is pointing out that, in spite of the President's $7.1 billion dollar plan, it will be impossible to have sufficient H5N1 vaccine to protect all Americans before 2011.

But we have some alternatives:

1. DNA vaccines. These vaccines are untested, but the technology looks promising. We wrote about them in a recent edition of "Better All The Time."

2. RNAi. RNA interference technology looks particularly promising because it doesn't affect DNA the way traditional gene therapy does. More here.

3. Vaccine boosters. I hadn't heard of this alternative before. The idea is to stretch vaccines by a factor of 5 by adding adjuvants - chemicals that boost the effectiveness of the vaccine.

   Theoretically you could dilute the vaccine to treat more people but maintain the same effectiveness. Wired reports that "a host of such adjuvants are exiting laboratories right now."

4. Dismantling patents. Specifically the patent for Tamiflu. I understand the reluctance to do this in a country who's GDP depends heavily on intellectual property. But recently I recommended we do this in an open letter to the President.

5. The Dark Horse. There is a dark horse in this race that Wired did not mention. The NanoViricides company claims to have developed a "specially designed, flexible, nanomaterial that contains an encapsulated active pharmaceutical ingredient and targets it to a specific type of virus, like a guided missile."

UPDATE: Dr. Henry Miller published a column at Tech Central Station today that represents, I think, the best counter-argument against the "dismantling patents" alternative.

Miller's argument is that when the UN (or anybody else) fights intellectual property, we all pay for it in decreased innovation. If drug companies can't profit fully from their considerable efforts to develop the last generation of drugs, they will be less able to develop the next generation of drugs.

I agree. My position is that we should ignore Roche's Tamiflu patent at present, and then settle with the company later. We get the medicine, Roche (eventually) gets the money they deserve.

And there has been some indication that Roche is going to cooperate with generic manufacturers.