Christie Ballantyne, a cardiologist at the Baylor College of Medicine, led a clinical trial that indicated Vytorin may have a potent anti-inflammatory effect.
The flavonoids inhibited the secretion of various inflammatory cells called cytokines in H5N1-infected cells, but had no effect on noninfected cells or tumor necrosis factor, a key inflammatory protein.
"People are just beginning to think about modifying the immune inflammatory response to see if it has some sort of effect on behavioral symptoms, " says Dr. Hollander.
In a statement handed out to reporters, Merck said that the class effect might extend beyond these Cox-2 inhibitors, to many older non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.