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Cod Enzyme Kills Bird Flu

Posted by samzenpus on 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."

2 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cure? by malsdavis · · Score: 4, Informative

    The virus may mutate into a form resistant to the enzyme in the future but it would then no longer be the same virus strain, the virus would have to start all over again and it may not even succeed. There is no reason why other 'cured' viruses like smallpox & polio couldn't have mutated and beat their cures (although influenza does mututate more than small pox) but they didn't and now the world is free of them.

    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".

  2. Flu is newsworthy because it's killed before by derdesh · · Score: 4, Informative

    One reason epidemiologists are especially concerned about avian flu because flu pandemics have killed tens of millions of people before. 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 does not mean that avian flu is not a real threat.