Bird Flu: Sprucin' it up!

Yeah, the holidays may be over but you may want to think twice before you throw that Christmas tree away. According to an article posted at CNN.com on Friday January 20, a small company, Biolyse Pharma. Corp., has found a new use for them. The needles of the spruce, pine, and fir trees contain the main ingredient , shikimic acid, that can be found in the drug known as Tamiflu. As the cases of the Bird Flu continue to grow, Tamiflu has played a critical role in trying to suppress the pandemic. Thus far there have been 149 cases worldwide and 80 of those have been fatal. However, according to the World Health Organization most cases are prevalent in Asia.

In response, another Canadian company, Gro-Bark, is taking those discarded trees and donating them to Biolyse instead of chopping them up and selling them for mulch.

Now let's just take a moment and think about this. It's amazing how far we have come along in the world of medicine. How did we get from a world that would exile the sick to avoid contamination to extracting acids from trees to treat the Bird Flu? AMAZING! It's shocking everyone, like Dr. William Shaffner of Vanderbilt University who says, I was absolutely entranced that there's a small company in Canada making this shikimic acid out of Christmas trees. I was ready to donate our own. What will this world come to next?