3 ms·

Isn't a person that is about to die anyway and is willing to take it the exact perfect test subject? Strange thinking. By the way, 200k people die each year f

by ck2 12y ago

Isn't a person that is about to die anyway and is willing to take it the exact perfect test subject? Strange thinking. By the way, 200k people die each year from measles, that's 199k more than ebola.

codexjourneys 12y ago
I agree, if it were me I'd be begging doctors for a test drug OR begging any survivor for a blood transfusion. You're already at serious risk, this is the moment when you try. I also think the patient should have had a say in this -- they never even asked him what he wanted to do or mentioned that this was a possibility. He was a doctor and could have given informed consent.
sliverstorm 12y ago
In the article you supposedly just read, they explain the doctors were extremely worried that if Khan died after being given the drug, Africans would believe the western drug killed him and mistrust of western medicine would grow even more. Which makes sense, they already struggle with many Africans who are afraid of western medicine and prefer witch doctors to the strange outsider western doctors. Just a week or two ago I was reading of how western doctors were being turned away from infected villages by road blockades and armed men.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
adventured 12y ago
It's a spot on stat, but it's even more dramatic than that. In ebola's entire 40 year history, it has killed less people than measles kills in a single month of any given year.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  But it doesn't work the way you seem to imply. It's like saying that in entire 70 years of their history nuclear weapons have killed less people than die in a car crash in a single quarter of any given year. Yes, cars are more deadly at the moment, but that doesn't make nuclear weapons any less dangerous.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Comments like this miss the point. Measles kills people because of poor public health delivery systems. When we have the latter in place, measles is easy to control. Hardly anyone in well-developed countries dies from measles, because we understand it quite well and can vaccinate against it. On the other hand, we don't have a reliable treatment for Ebola yet. The combination of having a longish incubation period and being highly contagious give it the potential to be very bad indeed. Hence the proverb 'better the devil you know.'
- Xylakant 12y ago
  Actually , measles are having a grand comeback in the US, case numbers rising [1]. The reasons are erriely similar to what makes fighting the Ebola outbreak so hard: People distrust the medical system and do not vaccinate. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm?mobile=nocontent http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm?mobile...
  - andygates 12y ago
    "public health delivery systems" alas include the recipents. Antivax superstition in the west is a "final mile" kind of problem; we have everything else in place and working pretty well.
    - einhverfr 12y ago
      To be fair, when the pro-vaxxers don't differentiate between Varicella vaccine, Gardisil, and Measles vaccines in arguments, anti-vaxxers are more or less invited to use the same equivalence. What is needed in the US is a more nuanced view on vaccination, and a realization that one can be against endlessly pushing ever-expanding vaccine regimens, but still in favor of widespread and routine vaccines for those few serious diseases for which vaccination is really ideally suited. But once everything is black and white, usually both sides are wrong.
      - true_religion 12y ago
drivingmenuts 12y ago
That wasn't the point. The point was that the drug was very experimental, produced in a country that's not trustworthy, with an unknown chance of success. Success would generate, at best, faint praise. Failure would generate a shitstorm and a half. Given our rep over there, it could well generate one anyway.
- ars 12y ago
  > produced in a country that's not trustworthy Wasn't it made in the US?
  - pgeorgi 12y ago
    Exactly. Guinea's health minister said something along the lines of "If the WHO thinks that our citizens should serve as test subjects for these drugs, that's something we'll need to debate with them". That's how the use of these drugs is perceived over there. Liberia is historically close to the US and as such more willing to work with unproven western technology in critical times. Others are suspicious even if the things they get is tried and proven for a century.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      >> "That's how the use of these drugs is perceived over there." I really wouldn't put it past big pharma to have discussed that they could use these people as test subjects and get minimal bad press if it fails.
  - andyjohnson0 12y ago
    Tangential, but Wikipedia has an interesting but brief description [1] of how the drug is produced. Its a rather complex process involving infected mice, lab-work, and generation of antibodies in tobacco plants. It is understandable that the drug is expensive and only available in small quantities. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp#Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp#Production
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  It's not even "our rep" that's the issue. One or two people die of a horrific disease, western doctors in spacesuits show up and spray the village and tell the locals to ignore their traditional burial rituals. Then loads more people get sick. To a populace who don't understand what is happening and whose education is not that advanced it's easy to see how they could assume the westerners caused the disease to spread.

by ck2 12y ago

Isn't a person that is about to die anyway and is willing to take it the exact perfect test subject? Strange thinking. By the way, 200k people die each year from measles, that's 199k more than ebola.

codexjourneys 12y ago

I agree, if it were me I'd be begging doctors for a test drug OR begging any survivor for a blood transfusion. You're already at serious risk, this is the moment when you try. I also think the patient should have had a say in this -- they never even asked him what he wanted to do or mentioned that this was a possibility. He was a doctor and could have given informed consent.

sliverstorm 12y ago

In the article you supposedly just read, they explain the doctors were extremely worried that if Khan died after being given the drug, Africans would believe the western drug killed him and mistrust of western medicine would grow even more. Which makes sense, they already struggle with many Africans who are afraid of western medicine and prefer witch doctors to the strange outsider western doctors. Just a week or two ago I was reading of how western doctors were being turned away from infected villages by road blockades and armed men.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

adventured 12y ago

It's a spot on stat, but it's even more dramatic than that. In ebola's entire 40 year history, it has killed less people than measles kills in a single month of any given year.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
But it doesn't work the way you seem to imply. It's like saying that in entire 70 years of their history nuclear weapons have killed less people than die in a car crash in a single quarter of any given year. Yes, cars are more deadly at the moment, but that doesn't make nuclear weapons any less dangerous.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Comments like this miss the point. Measles kills people because of poor public health delivery systems. When we have the latter in place, measles is easy to control. Hardly anyone in well-developed countries dies from measles, because we understand it quite well and can vaccinate against it. On the other hand, we don't have a reliable treatment for Ebola yet. The combination of having a longish incubation period and being highly contagious give it the potential to be very bad indeed. Hence the proverb 'better the devil you know.'

Xylakant 12y ago
Actually , measles are having a grand comeback in the US, case numbers rising [1]. The reasons are erriely similar to what makes fighting the Ebola outbreak so hard: People distrust the medical system and do not vaccinate. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm?mobile=nocontent http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm?mobile...
- andygates 12y ago
  "public health delivery systems" alas include the recipents. Antivax superstition in the west is a "final mile" kind of problem; we have everything else in place and working pretty well.
  - einhverfr 12y ago
    To be fair, when the pro-vaxxers don't differentiate between Varicella vaccine, Gardisil, and Measles vaccines in arguments, anti-vaxxers are more or less invited to use the same equivalence. What is needed in the US is a more nuanced view on vaccination, and a realization that one can be against endlessly pushing ever-expanding vaccine regimens, but still in favor of widespread and routine vaccines for those few serious diseases for which vaccination is really ideally suited. But once everything is black and white, usually both sides are wrong.
    - true_religion 12y ago

drivingmenuts 12y ago

That wasn't the point. The point was that the drug was very experimental, produced in a country that's not trustworthy, with an unknown chance of success. Success would generate, at best, faint praise. Failure would generate a shitstorm and a half. Given our rep over there, it could well generate one anyway.

ars 12y ago
> produced in a country that's not trustworthy Wasn't it made in the US?
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  Exactly. Guinea's health minister said something along the lines of "If the WHO thinks that our citizens should serve as test subjects for these drugs, that's something we'll need to debate with them". That's how the use of these drugs is perceived over there. Liberia is historically close to the US and as such more willing to work with unproven western technology in critical times. Others are suspicious even if the things they get is tried and proven for a century.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "That's how the use of these drugs is perceived over there." I really wouldn't put it past big pharma to have discussed that they could use these people as test subjects and get minimal bad press if it fails.
- andyjohnson0 12y ago
  Tangential, but Wikipedia has an interesting but brief description [1] of how the drug is produced. Its a rather complex process involving infected mice, lab-work, and generation of antibodies in tobacco plants. It is understandable that the drug is expensive and only available in small quantities. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp#Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp#Production
cmdkeen 12y ago
It's not even "our rep" that's the issue. One or two people die of a horrific disease, western doctors in spacesuits show up and spray the village and tell the locals to ignore their traditional burial rituals. Then loads more people get sick. To a populace who don't understand what is happening and whose education is not that advanced it's easy to see how they could assume the westerners caused the disease to spread.