"Doctor, I need a prescription for that bird flu drug." If recentnewspaper headlines are any indication,1 this request has beenrepeated tens of thousands of times around the country thisfall. So much oseltamivir (Tamiflu) has been prescribed presumably for personal stockpiling in case of an avian influenzapandemic, given that the human influenza season has not yetbegun that at the end of October, the drug's manufacturerstopped shipping it to the United States.
A busy outpatient office is no place to think through complicatedethical dilemmas. But a request for oseltamivir is just that,and . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Source Information
Dr. Brett is a professor of medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia; Dr. Zuger is an internist and infectious-disease specialist at St. Luke'sRoosevelt Hospital Center, New York.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Nicoll, A
(2008). Children, avian influenza H5N1 and preparing for the next pandemic. Arch. Dis. Child.
93: 433-438
[Abstract][Full Text]
Curtis, N., Pollard, A. J
(2007). Physicians' perception of pandemic influenza. Arch. Dis. Child.
92: 938-938
[Full Text]
Weinstock, D. M., Zuccotti, G.
(2006). Adamantane Resistance in Influenza A. JAMA
295: 934-936
[Full Text]