As the flu season continues in full-swing, most people can appreciate the need for drugs that stop viruses after they take hold in the body. Despite this serious need for new drugs, a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin raise serious concerns about an emerging strategy for stopping viral infections.

As per their research report appearing in the January 2010 issue of the journal GENETICS, medications that cause viruses to die off by forcing their nucleic acid to mutate rapidly might actually, in some instances, cause them to emerge from the process stronger, perhaps even more virulent than before drug therapy........