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Show "COLD WAR" SPEEDS UP According to the U S Public Health Service, the average aver-age American will have three colds this year (just as he always does), and that will be about 579 million colds for the nation. But bv 1970 all may be changed! In the meanwhile, the average sufferer will spent about a dollar in the drugstore, hopeful that something will help, and that's half a billion! His absenteeism from this cause will exceed that from all other illnesses and injuries combined! Every single day, 125,000 workers are staying home to nurse colds. The annual cost in lost production pro-duction and lost wages plus medical bills is estimated at 55 billion. Assorted remedies developed since World War II. have shortened a cold's duration somewhat and relieved respiratory misery. But even the most effective, such as Coricidin (which doctors prescribe and is now sold over the counter) are palliatives at best, to be used until the "master weapon" finally appears. A year ago, our best scientific minds, directing the multl-mlllion-dollar research efforts of the Government and the nation's pharmaceutical companies were cautious in their predictions, the most optimistic hinting at a breakthrough in ten years. At that time, Dr. Preston Perlman, director of biological research for Schering Corporation, Cor-poration, advised us to forget the idea that there is a single sin-gle common cold virus since there are "any number . . . possibly 100 or more." Thus, to achieve an effective common com-mon cold vaccine, he said, "would probably take an effort ef-fort ten times the magnitude of the polio vaccine effort." And Dr. Robert Huebner of the National Institute of Health, which is co-ordinating the vaccine hunt while the actual vaccine-making lob is being done by pharmaceutical pharmaceuti-cal manufacturers such as Schering, pegged the project last year "at the same stage we were with the polio virus ten years ago." But, he warned, the urgency is not the same, declaring prudently: "the timetable will depend on the magnitude of the effort." Today, Dr. Perlman is optimistic over the progress made by the industry In 1964 and says: "We all have high hopes that an effective cold vaccine will be on the market in five years!" But, mind you, this will be no "aire" for with the vaccine, nobody will catch cold in the first place. The common com-mon cold will be as out-of-style as housemaid's-knee. |