X-Message-Number: 22060 Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 23:31:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Christine Gaspar <> Subject: SARS update I am posting this letter, which I wrote to Rick Potvin's Immortality Workbook tonight. It was originally intended to be a response to his comments about SARS and licorice, but I ended up saying a lot more about SARS than I originally intended. As I have been frequently updating the CSC and cryonet sites with my SARS reports, I thought it would be fitting to add this one too. Christine Gaspar ----------------------------------------------------- Hi there. I am writing this to answer an email that Rick sent me. He asked for my opinion on the claim that licorice might be able to cure SARS. I also want to voice some of my thoughts about SARS, and give all of you an update about how its going in my little corner of the world. As for Rick's previous question to me, asking if I'd like to contribute on a regular basis as a type of "SARS reporter", well feel free to reprint any of my letters as you see fit. I prefer writing when I feel I have something to say, rather than on a regular basis. I will try to copy this to the CSC and Cryonet sites too. I have not heard of any SARS treatments involving licorice. We have 10 critically ill patients in our ICU, all on ventilators, all with SARS. Some of them are our own staff. Two patients died this week, one of which was a 45 year old man, whose brother and mother also have SARS. ( I think the mother died too). I think that if our physicians believed that it was even possible to treat SARS with licorice, that they would try it. To date, 42 staff members of my hospital have come down with SARS. I think that that fact alone, begrudgingly makes us the experts on how to deal with this disease. I can tell you, that even those who are expert in dealing with infectious disease are the first to state that there is far more we don't know about SARS than what we do know. There will always be those who believe that there will be one natural substance out there that will cure all of the diseases that scare us the most. Always be wary of "cure all" solutions, as there really is no such thing. I also want to comment on one of Rick's statements about SARS, where he ponders why the media is making such a big deal about it when the flu kills far more people. First of all, we can be immunized against influenza. SARS is a completely new disease, which has no cure,or immunization to date. Secondly, if you are young and relatively healthy, you can feel quite confident in the knowledge that the flu probably won't kill you. With SARS, there really is no way of predicting who of us will recover, and who will die. SARS is a bigger threat than the flu for those reasons, and because there are a lot of aspects to studying SARS which are worrisome. There may be "super shedders", which are people who have a large viral load, and are better at spreading SARS than others. It has also been considered that there may be people with sub-clinical presentations of SARS, in which they show relatively few, if no symptoms, but are able to spread the disease easily. If these people are walking around, unknowingly spreading SARS in the community, there is no telling how many people will potentially become infected. Then, there is a growing concern about how long the virus remains in the body. Consider this: A person becomes ill with SARS, and is hospitalized. 3 or 4 weeks go by, they get better and are discharged home. They are then placed on a 10 day home quarantine, and make follow up visits to the hospital 7 days, then 30 days post discharge for a follow up chest x ray and bloodwork. Is it possible that when they are discharged home, feeling somewhat better that they are still contagious? We have patients in our ICU who have been ill with SARS since late March. True, the virus may have passed and now they are suffering the organ damage brought on by the virus and the drugs used to treat it. But...they are still finding corona virus in these patients' stool. Most of the patients who have managed to survive the SARS infection, have ongoing medical problems. Most of them have not completely recovered, and it is questionable whether or not they will end up with chronic breathing difficulties, etc. SARS, and the powerful immuno-suppressants, and anti inflammatories used to treat it, are devastating to the entire body. Those in our ICU are on experimental treatments I have never heard of. In fact, I will try to find out what the current treatment protocol is, and report it to all of you as soon as I can. It might make for fascinating reading. SARS is very frightening, especially to me, and my colleagues. My hospital has been gravely injured by the implications of SARS 2. We will lose a lot of staff...some because they have become very ill, others because they feel betrayed by the SARS decision makers, who put politics ahead of the lives and safety of our staff. Our hospital has been labelled "The SARS Hospital" in Toronto, by the press, and the community. Our hospital has been closed to the public since May 23rd, and it will probably take another month to gradually re-open services. The emergency department where I work will be the last to open, when we are prepared to accept patients again. Our reputation has been gravely injured. There will likely be a public inquiry, partially stemming from the two emerg nurses who went to the press to tell them that officials didn't heed the warnings of the nurses. There will likely be class action law suits, considering how many people have died or lost family members to this. I have no idea how large of an impact all of this will make. Anyhow, that's about it for now. When I find out about the new treatment protocols, I'll let all of you know. Christine Gaspar Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22060