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Princess Turandot

(4,942 posts)

25. Apropos of this...

Mon Oct 20, 2014, 05:23 AM

Oct 2014

back in July, Sierra Leone's Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who was one of the most dedicated experts on hemorrhagic illnesses in Africa, was felled by ebola. At the time, one of the companies working on the Zmapp treatment drug contacted his physicians at Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and offered them some of the very small quantity of the drug that they had hand. (Zmapp is the treatment drug that was eventually given to Dr. Brantly, among a handful of other patients in different countries. Some of the patients who received it lived and some died anyway.)

After extensive discussion, MSF decided not to accept the drug, which had shown promise on monkeys in an early 2014 study. Why? Because it could not have been given to a human up until that point, and they were concerned that it might make things worse.

Science doesn't happen in sound bites.

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no financial incentive to develop ebola vaccine...the fact that people are dying isn't enough [View all] spanone Oct 2014 OP

Not strange - sick PumpkinAle Oct 2014 #1

You nuts? Warpy Oct 2014 #2

not my words...watch the video. spanone Oct 2014 #4

And, another example of the benefits of capitalism. Tierra_y_Libertad Oct 2014 #3

More. proverbialwisdom Oct 2014 #5

that's despicable. but even if it weren't skipped due to greed, drugs like that take a long time to dionysus Oct 2014 #6

It's bad that money has anything to do with it, but money alone does not create a vaccine Bluenorthwest Oct 2014 #7

There are a bunch of them. Hepatitis C is a good example. MineralMan Oct 2014 #9

Hep C is a very good answer, MM. HIV also. About 35 million people have died from HIV related causes Bluenorthwest Oct 2014 #11

And we have one Ebola death in the US and a few thousand in West Africa. MineralMan Oct 2014 #13

I can understand the urge for some to use fear as a sort of talisman when they feel lacking in Bluenorthwest Oct 2014 #14

The Reagan years were a wasteland of indifference. MineralMan Oct 2014 #15

Ebola vaccine research has been going on for years. MineralMan Oct 2014 #8

As always, MM, you take the time to develop an informed opinion . . . Journeyman Oct 2014 #21

Cure?!? No ongoing ca$h from that but if enough folks with enough money get it TheKentuckian Oct 2014 #10

A vaccine is preventative, it is not a cure. Bluenorthwest Oct 2014 #12

Some years ago congress had a bill regarding "orphan drugs" to address this. Does anyone know jwirr Oct 2014 #16

The NIH was working one one. ColesCountyDem Oct 2014 #17

It's quite likely we could have had one years ago, if there had been $ in it. Warren DeMontague Oct 2014 #18

Pharmeceutical companies are in business to make money, not to make people healthier. hedgehog Oct 2014 #19

This is nonsense Yo_Mama Oct 2014 #20

Apropos of this... Princess Turandot Oct 2014 #25

The article in Bloomberg was mentioning the government really is the only customer davidpdx Oct 2014 #22

The saying is that the second pill cost 15 cents to make. The first cost $2 billion (nt) Recursion Oct 2014 #24

Malaria kills 3x as many Africans, HIV-AIDS an order of magnitude more Recursion Oct 2014 #23

We need to pitch the idea to them in bomb form. Jamastiene Oct 2014 #26

Ginning up fear Turbineguy Oct 2014 #27

That's normally where governments step in. Kablooie Oct 2014 #28

So why doesn't the US government offer a huge prize (say half a billion dollars) Nye Bevan Oct 2014 #29

The government needs to fund it. nt Logical Oct 2014 #30

Update. proverbialwisdom Oct 2014 #31