"His blood showed antibodies to the virus" Given that Zmapp is three "humanized monoclonal antibodies" to Ebola and from memory is therefore intended for early

"His blood showed antibodies to the virus" Given that Zmapp is three "humanized monoclonal antibodies" to Ebola and from memory is therefore intended for early stage disease, giving it to someone who's had Ebola long enough that they're already producing normal antibodies could be pointless, except in terms of Stage I trials (the ones where you test a drug primarily to see if it's safe, and also look for evidence of efficacy). It could be that most or all of the 7 people given it were at this point, and the testing was really just for safety. In which case we eeeevil white men are obviously going to first test it on ourselves for the political reasons you and others point out. 3 Liberians were given it later. Just like the vaccine that's in Stage I trials is being first tried on Americans, with a second effort on "60 healthy volunteers at the University of Oxford in England and among 40 healthy volunteers in Mali" and then an expected "40 healthy volunteers in Gambia". (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Pages/EbolaVaxCandidate.aspx http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Pages/EbolaV...) Important note: no matter how dire this Ebola outbreak gets, we still have to be very careful in vaccine trials, which are given to ostensibly healthy people. You don't, for an extreme, and unlikely given the current state of the art hypothetical, want to find out that it kills 99% of those given it 2 years later. Aside from the universally fatal stuff like rabies there can be worse outcomes than getting the disease.