COMMON blood-pressure drugs might help protect us against a flu pandemic by preventing the development of a lethal lung condition.
The condition, called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), can be triggered by noxious gases or infections that damage the lung. One such infection was SARS, the virus that emerged in China in 2003.
ARDS is the result of a runaway response of the host’s own immune system, and once it starts there is almost nothing doctors can do. Around half of patients who develop ARDS die, and most of those killed by SARS had ARDS.
Now researchers have shown that…
