WE CAN be thankful for small mercies. Tamiflu, the drug that is being stockpiled as the first line of defence against pandemic flu, is not itself a killer.
Last week the US Food and Drug Administration conducted a routine review of the drug, at a time when reports in Japan were linking it to brain-related side effects in children under 16. They included two suicides and 10 deaths from brain inflammation and coma.
But such deaths cannot be pinned on Tamiflu, the FDA found. Flu itself can cause brain inflammation, and reports of this increased in the 1990s – before…
