Colds

Hunting for the elusive cure for the common cold, scientists have decoded the genomes of all known strains of the human rhinovirus, the main cause of the malady that makes millions miserable each year. But don't toss out the chicken soup yet. There is so much diversity among the strains that hopes for a vaccine or a treatment that would prevent or cure every cold are slim, according to the scientists' study, published online Thursday in the journal Science.

When Nick Rous feels a cold coming on, he starts taking vitamin C and lots of garlic. When people around him come down with the flu, he reaches for echinacea and a homeopathic remedy, Oscillococcinum. As a last resort, Rous, 30, says he turns to Tylenol and the nasal spray Afrin. "But I try to avoid that stuff as much as possible," says the saxophone player, who lives in San Francisco.

Along with the cold and flu season, old-time beliefs and adages come around every year too. Mothers admonish their children not to go out of the house with wet hair, and to remove wet socks after coming in from the rain, for fear the kids will catch their death of cold. They offer up chicken soup as a cure-all. And, of course, most of us have heard that we should "feed a cold and starve a fever."

What's a mother to do? For decades, parents have been turning to the nation's pharmacies for help when their children come down with coughs, runny noses, sneezes and your standard cold. Kid-size doses of pills, sprays and cough syrups fill Americans' medicine cabinets. Now, the federal government is questioning whether some of these children's medicines should be pulled from drugstore shelves for safety, and some parents are wondering whether officials are going too far.

A virulent new form of a common cold virus has killed 10 people and hospitalized at least 53 since May 2006, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The adenovirus serotype 14 virus has sickened more than 360 people in Texas, Oregon, Washington and New York, the report said. One of the largest outbreaks occurred at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where 106 soldiers were infected and one died.

The "common cold" is just that -- common. Adults get an average of three colds per year, and children can get as many as eight to 10. Over-the-counter antihistamines, decongestants and pain relievers can help alleviate the sneezing, congestion, runny nose and sore throat -- but medical science has yet to find a cure. A walk down the cold and flu aisle at the drugstore, however, would seem to tell another story.

TWO recent studies confirm travelers' worst suspicions: Airplanes and hotel rooms are fertile grounds for spreading cold and flu bugs. Harvard scientists confirmed that flu is spread on planes in a study released last month. Researchers found that the decline in air travel after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks delayed the onset of the 2001-02 flu season in the United States.

Many Americans are throwing back the trendy drink of the moment -- a so-called vitamin cocktail mixed with effervescent tablets and powders packed with vitamin C, zinc and herbs, and sold as a remedy to boost your immune system. While stores across the country are stocking natural cold remedies, two California-based products, Emer'gen-C and Airborne, are breaking out of the pack by combining the promise of good health with high-profile promotion.

David SANTORIELLO boards an airplane once a month for business but never without first swabbing his nose with Zicam, a zinc-based nasal gel, to ward off cold germs while aloft. "I don't think I've had a cold in three years," he says. Santoriello discovered the gel because he works for Matrixx Initiatives Inc. in Phoenix, which makes Zicam. "There is no preventive claim for Zicam nasal gel," he's quick to note, but some studies suggest that zinc can shorten the duration of a cold.