Bad News

Via Matthew Holt there's bad news on the Tamiflu front:

The FDA said there were 32 reports of "neuropsychiatric" adverse events, 31 of which happened in Japan, and included abnormal behavior, hallucinations, convulsions and encephalitis. The agency said it received a report of two patients, ages 12 and 13, jumping out of their windows after receiving two doses of Tamiflu.

This is discouraging, to say the least, considering Tamiflu is the chief treatment for bird flu (and probably the only treatment). This development is even worse given recent reports from China:

The Chinese government announced late Wednesday that it had confirmed the country's first three cases of bird flu in people, an admission that marked a potentially far-reaching change in how China handles the emergence of new diseases.

The Chinese Health Ministry said Wednesday evening that bird flu had been confirmed in a 9-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister in Hunan Province, in central China, and a 24-year-old woman in Anhui Province, in east-central China. The boy has recovered and was released from a hospital last weekend; the girl and the woman, a poultry worker, died.

The good news is China's newfound forth-rightness; the bad news is Bird Flu continues to march its way across the globe and our most promising treatment might be unsuitable for children, one of the more susceptible groups to death.

In any case, I think I'll go get that flu shot...