The title says “shingles, cold sores, mono, chicken pox, and herpes,” but that’s a little misleading. Actually, shingles, cold sores, mono, and chicken pox are all different types of herpes.  But since most people hear “herpes,” and think only of sexually transmitted diseases, I’m giving this article a title that hopefully won’t scare too many people off.

How herpes works: Viruses — all viruses, not just herpes — don’t really “do” much as they float around the bloodstream or in the tissue fluids. They don’t eat. They don’t generate energy. They don’t move under their own power. They don’t attack anything. They just… float. That is, they float until they manage to stick to a host cell and get inside. Inside the cell is where they reproduce, and do their damage.

Viruses – all viruses, not just herpes — are unable to reproduce on their own. Instead, they trick their host into doing it for them. Once inside a host cell, the virus splices its DNA into the host’s DNA. So when the machinery of the host cell does its normal job and transcribes its own DNA, the viral DNA gets transcribed along with it. (It’s sort of like sneaking couple of pages into a stack of papers someone is about to run through a Xerox machine).

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Is there really an herb for this? How quickly does it work? And how can we slip it into someone else’s coffee without them noticing?

Okay, in all seriousness, it isn’t that easy.  Yes, there are herbs that can help. But none of them are magically effective. None of them take the place of those major life changes we might want to prescribe for others, or perhaps reach out and grasp for ourselves. None of them can accomplish what meditation, mindfulness, or a solid night’s sleep can. Having said that…

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You’ve seen the ads the last few months: Tamiflu® for flu symptoms. “Because there’s no such thing as a little flu.” They don’t use the word “cure.” But the implication is clear. You get Tamiflu® from your doctor, and it helps.  Unlike chicken soup, bed rest, aspirin, and herbs… Because the flu is serious, and Tamiflu® is serious medicine.

Well, I’m here to say, not so much.

Which might not be so surprising: the guy who works in the health food store says not to take a pharmaceutical drug! But please understand, I don’t walk around hating pharmaceuticals. I use aspirin when I need to. I believe that statins are effective. I’d argue that antibiotics are one of the great developments of the last century. Etc.

So, having established my credibility (I hope!) as fair-minded and non-partisan, allow me to say I believe Tamiflu® is a bad idea. How bad of an idea is it? That’s a hard question to answer. Not because the data aren’t there, but because Roche Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes and sells Tamiflu®, has been first hiding, then withholding, that data for more than a decade now.

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