4 ms·

"As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experim

by Fuxy 12y ago

"As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experimental treatment would do more harm than good." Really? I don't think this is a difficult choice at all there's nothing worse than dying so at that point any experimental drug should be fair game with the patients consent. We already know what will happen if they don't take anything so why not try something else instead of letting people die all the time.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
shiven 12y ago
there's nothing worse than dying Donald Rumsfeld, the CIA and victims of "extraordinary rendition" would like to disagree. (hint: waterboarding) so at that point any experimental drug should be fair game with the patients consent. The ethics of it are way more complicated than that. How would you like to take the risk of not only dying a horrible death, but having the pain magnified 10x due to a drug side effect? Or a drug that causes permanent brain damage to the point of vegetative state but saves your life?
- Fuxy 12y ago
  Humans will always find inventive ways to torture other humans however if i had a choice between waterboarding and Ebola i will have to go with the one with higher chances of survival. As far as drug side effects are concerned it's up to the patient really. Risk brain damage or amplification of pain for the potential for a higher chance? There's only so far you can go experimenting on animals before you just have to give people a chance to choose for themselves. Once the drug has been proven to give you better odds without known severe side effects or it the likelihood of the side effects is very low then it's up to each individual person to decide even if these test were only done on animals before. What is worse being given a choice or being prevented from choosing by a lot of read tape.
cpwright 12y ago
They don't know that the patients will die. There is a survival rate of somewhere between 10-50%. The patient will likely die if you do nothing, but it isn't a certainty. That said, I don't think there was anything wrong with giving it a go when they have pretty poor odds.
- HelloMcFly 12y ago
  From what I was reading about this Ebola outbreak, most of the "survivor" percentages were from those who hadn't yet had the illness long enough to die or be certain they will live. There is a lot of uncertainty about the death rate for Ebola in a given outbreak, this one included. While trying to find a description of this, it looks like FiveThirtyEight put something together on the exact topic: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-deadly-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-will-be/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-de... As for using experimental drugs, there are certainly times when the probability of death may seem dramatically increased for one patient relative to the overall survival numbers. "Certainty" for a population is one thing, "certainty" for some patients can be more (but not entirely) clear.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    There was a quote in an article yesterday, where a doctor at Emory basically said: our treatment strategy with Ebola is just to keep the patient alive long enough for the body's immune system to fight the disease. People don't die of the bleeding per se, but the fluid loss and organs going into shock: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-virus-20140801-story.html http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-vi.... A doctor in that article estimates that the mortality rate with proper medical care is more like 45-55%. So the proper base rate to consider for an experimental treatment with respect to U.S. persons is not the 90% mortality rate in Africa, but the ~50% mortality rate that might be expected of someone in a hospital here in the U.S.

by Fuxy 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

shiven 12y ago

there's nothing worse than dying Donald Rumsfeld, the CIA and victims of "extraordinary rendition" would like to disagree. (hint: waterboarding) so at that point any experimental drug should be fair game with the patients consent. The ethics of it are way more complicated than that. How would you like to take the risk of not only dying a horrible death, but having the pain magnified 10x due to a drug side effect? Or a drug that causes permanent brain damage to the point of vegetative state but saves your life?

Fuxy 12y ago
Humans will always find inventive ways to torture other humans however if i had a choice between waterboarding and Ebola i will have to go with the one with higher chances of survival. As far as drug side effects are concerned it's up to the patient really. Risk brain damage or amplification of pain for the potential for a higher chance? There's only so far you can go experimenting on animals before you just have to give people a chance to choose for themselves. Once the drug has been proven to give you better odds without known severe side effects or it the likelihood of the side effects is very low then it's up to each individual person to decide even if these test were only done on animals before. What is worse being given a choice or being prevented from choosing by a lot of read tape.

cpwright 12y ago

They don't know that the patients will die. There is a survival rate of somewhere between 10-50%. The patient will likely die if you do nothing, but it isn't a certainty. That said, I don't think there was anything wrong with giving it a go when they have pretty poor odds.

HelloMcFly 12y ago
From what I was reading about this Ebola outbreak, most of the "survivor" percentages were from those who hadn't yet had the illness long enough to die or be certain they will live. There is a lot of uncertainty about the death rate for Ebola in a given outbreak, this one included. While trying to find a description of this, it looks like FiveThirtyEight put something together on the exact topic: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-deadly-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-will-be/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-de... As for using experimental drugs, there are certainly times when the probability of death may seem dramatically increased for one patient relative to the overall survival numbers. "Certainty" for a population is one thing, "certainty" for some patients can be more (but not entirely) clear.
- rayiner 12y ago
  There was a quote in an article yesterday, where a doctor at Emory basically said: our treatment strategy with Ebola is just to keep the patient alive long enough for the body's immune system to fight the disease. People don't die of the bleeding per se, but the fluid loss and organs going into shock: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-virus-20140801-story.html http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-vi.... A doctor in that article estimates that the mortality rate with proper medical care is more like 45-55%. So the proper base rate to consider for an experimental treatment with respect to U.S. persons is not the 90% mortality rate in Africa, but the ~50% mortality rate that might be expected of someone in a hospital here in the U.S.