I've seen this cited several time on HN recently, is there a better source for this? Sorry, I imagine a lot of this stuff is in Russian only, but I would love if you could give an article/book/post about this sort of thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbidol
It's marketed as an over the counter cure for Influenza and only sold in Russia and China.
I guess the proof is in the pudding. Death rates for influenza are low by world standards in Russian and China:
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/influenza-...
Of course that could be a fluke and this drug is just a sugar pill because all medicine not approved by the FDA is fake, right? We have the most expensive medicine in the world, by far, so it must be the best!