aspirin and flu... dangerous??

Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Fellow skeptics, someone posted this on facebook, she normally gives good links.. but I dont know about this, I confess I'm ignorant so I leave it for you:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs001/1101240076659/archive/1102758254596.html

btw, regarding the flu (h1h1 previously swine)... how is it going? something one needs to be aware of??
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Sorry but the page includes an ad for a talk given by a homeopath and for a lecture by Gary Null, who is one of the biggest quacks around. If someone sent you that as a source, then they aren't a reliable source of information.

Linda
 
Even Reye's Syndrome's link with aspirin is controversial but play it safe and just avoid giving it to kids with fevers.
 
BenBurch said:
Really? I thought it was a done deal.

But really you couldn't ever do the sort of experiment that would let you resolve this, could you?
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Some data I remember reading a few years back strongly suggested that the correlation between Aspirin use and whatever viral illness/fever that kids got has decreased significantly.

It suggest that a specific viral strain was the primary cause for Reye's Syndrome(like how it occurs nowadays) and aspirin may have been a catalyst or just an innocent correlation bystander. It doesn't matter anyway since acetaminophen/paracetamol or ibuprofen are better drugs for temperature control.
 
Given all else on that site, I would question the statement that the supposed link contributed to "high death rates in Mexico".
 
Today's New York Times has an article on aspirin and the 1918 flu. Seems that large doses of aspirin were given to sufferers.

I'm not allowed to post links yet, so you will have to go to the Times website yourself.
 
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BenBurch said:
Some suggestion has been made that acetaminophen has a similar issue, but the studies were small.
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Do you have any source for this?

AFAIK, only ASA is contraindicated in kids with fever (in particular kids with influenza or chicken pox). Other NSAIDs and acetaminophen are not.
 
Dikken said:
Today's New York Times has an article on aspirin and the 1918 flu. Seems that large doses of aspirin were given to sufferers.

I'm not allowed to post links yet, so you will have to go to the Times website yourself.
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In 1918 Pandemic, Another Possible Killer: Aspirin
Dr. Starko acknowledged that she did not have autopsy reports or other documents that could prove that aspirin was the problem.
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This is one of those highly speculative individual researcher's hypothesis that we see often. The vast majority of the time they do not pan out. Once in a blue Moon they do.
Dr. Karen M. Starko, author of one of the earliest papers connecting aspirin use with Reye’s syndrome, has published an article suggesting that overdoses of the relatively new “wonder drug” could have been deadly.

What raised Dr. Starko’s suspicions is that high doses of aspirin, amounts considered unsafe today, were commonly used to treat the illness, and the symptoms of aspirin overdose may have been difficult to distinguish from those of the flu, especially among those who died soon after they became ill.
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Here is her paper the NYT is reporting on: Salicylates and Pandemic Influenza Mortality, 1918–1919 Pharmacology, Pathology, and Historic Evidence
The hypothesis presented herein is that aspirin contributed to the incidence and severity of viral pathology, bacterial infection, and death, because physicians of the day were unaware that the regimens (8.0–31.2 g per day) produce levels associated with hyperventilation and pulmonary edema in 33% and 3% of recipients, respectively.
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It's a "ViewPoint" not a study.


Lots of people would love to believe a 1918 like flu pandemic could not occur today because we have better medicine and we have antibiotics. It's hard for people to believe micro-organisms have not been conquered. Truth is, they have not been conquered. All one need do is look at the HIV pandemic.

But that one is easy to ignore, with a version of the "it can't happen here" or rather "to me" rationale that people often believe. It's in our human nature to perceive the world this way. We have made considerable progress against HIV, but that has taken decades. If a pandemic moved more quickly such as the 2009H1N1 pandemic we are currently in, and it was more deadly which fortunately this flu strain is not, modern medicine would not save the first hundred million people.
 
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Thank you Skeptigirl for providing the link. Only 13 more entries and I can do it for myself.

The NYT article didn't convince me either, but I thought that I should provide a different source.
 
BenBurch said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reye's_syndrome#cite_note-3
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How does that article support what you said: "acetaminophen has a similar issue"?

It doesn't show a correlation between acetaminophen and Reyes. It merely describes how many of the cases received asa and how many received apap. I think you may be misinterpreting the significance of the data. Unless the cases of Reyes was greater in kids who received apap than in kids who did not, you don't even have an association, let alone a causal relationship. 70% of those cases did not receive apap and 65% did not receive either asa or apap.
 
casebro said:
8-32 grams = 25 to 100 of today's standard aspirin tablet.
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8 grams/day are prescribed for some medical problems.


7.2 Toxicity
7.2.1 Human data
7.2.1.1 Adults
Mild to moderate toxicity 150-300 mg/kg
Serious toxicity 300-500 mg/kg
Potentially lethal > 500 mg/kg
(Temple, 1981)
7.2.1.2 Children
In a child, ingestion of 240 mg/kg will cause
moderately severe poisoning, but deaths rarely
occur when less than 480 mg/kg has been taken
(Done, 1978).
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I don't doubt medical people have killed people over the years via asa toxicity. I'm just saying this researcher's hypothesis is just that, an hypothesis. We know flu kills. We know the 1918 flu pandemic was rapidly fatal in people who never made it near a hospital. I doubt this hypothesis will turn out to apply to more than a small % of the deaths.
 
skeptigirl said:
If a pandemic moved more quickly such as the 2009H1N1 pandemic we are currently in, and it was more deadly which fortunately this flu strain is not, modern medicine would not save the first hundred million people.
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Sadly I believe you are right. Now, regardng the H1N1, is the general opinion that, by now, it can be considered equivalent to other flu viruses?

Thanks to all for your input, I have been reading here and there and there is still a lot of missunderstandings regarding the H1N1, some people are still in "panic mode" and I just want to be sure that I'm not taking it lightly.
 
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