It's back. With the tedious inevitability, to quote Sir Hugo Drax, of an unloved season. The winter cold. It starts with a prickling at the back of the throat. Before you know it, the coughing has begun. Followed by the sneezing and the streaming nose. The fact that there is no cure for the common cold is proof that man will never truly tame nature.
I doubt the pharmaceutical industry is in any rush to find a cure. Consumers around the globe spend billions of euros a year on cold treatments. Pharmaceutical companies like Reckitt Benckiser in the UK and Laboratories Urgo here in France earn a fortune from brands like Strepsils and Humex - and their ad agencies share the profits. According to Euromonitor, 89% of the French population are aware of the Humex brand. But all these products do is treat the symptoms, so you can get on with your life while the cold rips through your system, leaving you red-eyed and exhausted.
An intriguing chapter from the history of the cold war was the mysterious Common Cold Research Unit, a laboratory set up in 1946 on the site of an old military hospital in the British countryside. By testing deliberately infected volunteers, its aim was to reduce the "economic cost" of colds, which cause many days off work every year. The unit was closed in 1989, having failed to find a cure. The pharmaceutical giants must have heaved a sigh of relief.
