The strategy of selecting agents with anti-inflammatory properties need not only apply to pharmaceutical agents. There are already precedents in the literature for the use of natural agents to treat severe infections such as influenza. Ginseng and Salviae (28) have been trialed for their abilities to improve influenza vaccination outcomes with good results, and may also modulate cytokines to reduce immunopathology during influenza infections. Researchers working during the SARS outbreak used complementary medicines to treat a small number of SARS patients with good results, and suggested that these treatments might be useful in treating cases of avian influenza (29, 30) . A recent review of the antiviral and immunomodulatory effects of compounds isolated from plants and traditional Chinese medicines describes a Chinese study in which FM1 influenza virus-infected mice were given the traditional Chinese medicine Yiqi Qingwen Jiedu Heji (31) . Researchers found that this treatment reduced expression of the cytokines TNF, IL-6 and IFN-g in the lungs of FM1 influenza-infected mice, all of which are implicated in inflammation, and increased levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, the combined effect being a shortened course of influenza disease (32) . Glycyrrhizin, an active component of liquorice roots, when given to mice from one day before infection with influenza virus (H2N2), protected all treated mice from fatality while all control mice died (33) . What is most interesting about this result is that glycyrrhizin binds to, and inactivates, the novel pro-inflammatory mediator High Mobility Group Box 1 protein (HMGB1) (34) , which is elevated in the serum of sepsis patients who succumbed to infection (35) .