Will there ever be a cure for flu?

Influenza causes endless suffering and kills thousands of people every year. For centuries, scientists have searched for a cure, without success. Now one American doctor thinks he has found the answer. Roger Dobson reports

Dr Joseph Miller's treatment for flu-stricken patients appears to have had some remarkable effects. Within 30 minutes of being given an injection, the symptoms - including aches and pains, sore throats, and inflammation - are all reported to disappear. Repeat injections get rid of any recurrence, and the patient is pronounced clear of the bug within three days.

Medical science says that Dr Miller's flu remedy, which involves the injection of a diluted amount of the flu vaccine, shouldn't work. There is, after all, no known way in which a vaccine designed to prime the immune system to prevent future disease can actually fight a disease that has already taken hold.

But work it does, says Dr Miller, who has data and hundreds of satisfied patients to support the case. What's more, after 30 years of effectively and safely treating the disease, he has gone public with the evidence and made a call in a London-based medical journal, the Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine, for the treatment to be tested in proper trials.

Dr Miller says: "The results are quite remarkable. By injecting the vaccine in people who already have the flu, the response has been amazing. They come in with the flu - they feel sick, sore throat, stuffy nose, aching muscles - and the symptoms go away within 30 minutes. It was a total surprise. I am now suggesting that we first prove or disprove my clinical claims. The answers can only come from putting this concept to the test."

He first used the treatment in an influenza epidemic in 1968 and 1969, when he found that by injecting the vaccine just under the skin of patients he could get more or less instant results. Acute symptoms went in 30 minutes, fever disappeared in less than 24 hours, and all symptoms were gone in three days.

Symptoms do return, typically at four- to six-hour intervals on the first day, but patients are taught to inject themselves at home with the vaccine and each recurrence of symptoms is, Dr Miller says, relieved in minutes by a fresh injection. "The injections are repeated with each return of the symptoms until the symptoms no longer recur. The fever typically clears the first day, usually after about the third injection, and the entire illness is usually clear after three days," he says.

Dr Miller, now retired but still working with a medical school on the testing of the treatment, cannot say precisely how it works; he just knows that it does. The Alabama-based family physician concedesthat he is likely to face an uphill task convincing sceptics in the medical profession about the treatment. "In medicine you are trained in a certain way, you learn the mechanisms of how things work, and then someone comes along with something completely different. That challenges everything and raises a lot of questions," he says.

But there are those who are not totally hostile or dismissive. Professor Ron Eccles, the head of the common cold research unit at the University of Cardiff, says the results look interesting, but that proper trials are needed. "I have had a lot of correspondence with [Dr Miller] and he has provided me with a lot of information. It is a very interesting idea, but it needs to be clinically trialled. It goes against any mechanism we know of, and it is difficult to put into the framework of medicine and science as we understand it, so one is always suspicious of these sorts of things," he says.

Every now and then, novel ideas well outside the mainstream of medical thinking do emerge, and while most of them fall by the wayside, some make headway. One of the main reasons for not dismissing out of hand any new idea for treating flu is that no one has yet come up with a cure in spite of centuries of research, and in spite of the pressing need for a cure for a disease which, even in a relatively good year, will play a part in the deaths of about 20,000 people in the UK. In the extremely bad year of 1918, a pandemic of the disease killed at least 40 million people, including 300,000 in the UK.

One of the problems for the legions of scientists who have looked for a cure is that the flu virus is a near-perfect biological weapon. Like other viruses that cause illness, it gets into human cells, which it then harnesses to produce countless copies of itself. When the cell is full, it bursts, sending the copies of the virus out to colonise other cells. An added design feature of the flu virus is that it keeps changing and evolving, which makes it much more difficult to combat, and which is why individual vaccines only work with specific strains.

Scientists now believe that the more dangerous strains of flu are those that contain animal DNA because, it is reasoned, the alien genetic material causes temporary confusion in the human immune system. By the time the body's defences cotton on to what is happening, it is too late.

Some drugs have been developed that do have an effect on the flu virus. Professor Eccles says: "There are drugs that inhibit one of the enzymes that the virus uses to get into and out of cells. It can give some protection, but it has to be given very quickly and most people cannot get access to medicines that quickly. These drugs shorten the disease by one or two days. They are not a cure.''

In the search for a cure for flu, almost everything from synthetic drugs and hormones to yew extract and garlic and nettle soup has been tried over the years, so far without success. Some researchers suspect the answer may lie in the myriad ancient treatments for viral illnesses. And one new experimental treatment does bear an uncanny resemblance to one of the unlikeliest of traditional remedies, goose grease.

In ancient times, grease from a goose was smeared on to the chest, with the idea that it would slow down the infectious material, whatever it was, and stop it from passing from one person to another. Far-fetched? Primitive? Not a bit of it. Professor James Baker at the University of Michigan's Center for Biologic Nanotechnology has been developing a new treatment for warding off flu and other viruses. The rub-on lotion, which is a spin-off from anti-biological warfare research, snares the viruses and then kills them before they have time to infect the body cells and organs. The anti-flu lotion, a kind of liquid plastic, could be used all the time, or rubbed on whenever flu was endemic. Or it could be rubbed on in high risk, crowded environments such as airplanes and crowded trains to protect against cross-infection.

The lotion is still undergoing tests, but one distinct advantage has already emerged: it smells much better than goose grease.

SEX, DRUGS AND HAPPINESS - AND OTHER FLU TREATMENTS

* Frequent sex

Regular sex can protect against flu. Research at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania shows those who have sex twice a week get a protective boost from their immune systems. The antigen immunoglobulin A, or IgA, is the first line of defence against flu. Its levels can be measured in the saliva and lining of the nose. People who had sex twice a week had a 30 per cent increase in IgA levels. One theory is that people who have frequent sex are likely to be exposed to bugs, so the immune system is more developed.

* Non-prescription remedies

Decongestants and cough suppressants may relieve some symptoms, but they will not prevent, cure or shorten the illness. Some have side effects such as drowsiness, dizziness, insomnia or upset stomach. Antihistamines may relieve inflammatory symptoms, such as a runny nose and watery eyes. Aspirin can make sufferers more infectious - it increases the amount of virus shed in nasal secretions.

* Happiness

Happy, relaxed and energetic people are less likely to get flu or catch a cold. Inresearch, volunteers were quizzed about their mood, and then given nasal drops containing a virus. They were then monitored to see who went on to develop an infection. The researchers found that people who had a positive emotional style weren't infected as often by the virus. When they were, they experienced fewer symptoms than those with a negative emotional style.

* Hydrogen peroxide

A few drops of hydrogen peroxide in the ear can cure flu in 12 to 14 hours, claims one report from Germany. It starts working within two to three minutes, although there will be a bubbling noise for five to 10 minutes. "Although this method is perfectly safe for children to use, the loud bubbling and stinging frightens them,'' cautions a report.

* Vitamins

Many people believe taking large quantities of vitamin C will help to prevent flu or relieve symptoms, but studies have failed to find any conclusive data to support this. But the vitamin may reduce the severity or duration of symptoms.