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