And even if he did exist, if you subscribed to basic Christian tenets, Ebola was created by the man Himself.

I’ll give you that one Sammy.

Medicine is one of the devil’s tricks. God is the only one that can heal sickness

A religious debate.. Hang on while I grab Ebola popcorn ! No one will win this one I tell you !

No big pharma companies had an interest in working on treatment or a vaccine until Ebola came knocking on the West’s door. There are outbreaks all the time in Uganda, but because they’re used to it and they have a process of containment and treatment, they don’t become epidemics. West Africa has not the experience with handling Ebola. It’s shocking that it’s taken this long for pharma to become interested in working on it. How many other lives could have been saved before now if they worked on it earlier?

But of course it’s more important to be working on viagra type pills and antidepressants than curing diseases that actually kill people. Pauling and Pasteur must be rolling in their graves at how greedy and uncaring of the world’s populations the global chemistry/biochemistry industries have become.

@No TheNIH has been working on Ebola treatments for 20 years. You seem to think just because the news only started covering them recently that means they only started doing the research recently but that’s not the case.
Your image of ”big pharma” belongs in some socialist caricature not the real world. They’ve also given, at no charge, experimental treatments to the African healthcare services in various contries to conduct their own trials. Private pharma companies are also not the only ones that work on vaccines various US agencies and the US Military at Fort Detrick work on vaccines all the time.
There is obviously more emphasis because this is a much bigger outbreak killing thousands when ebola used to be isolated to small villages.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it hasn’t come knocking on the wests door at all, there has been no outbreak in the west nor can there be because the factors driving the African outbreak cannot be present in Europe.
There are outbreaks of Ebola every 2 years we’ve just never had one this bad before.

The real world is a bit more grey than the cartoon you just drew.

No Mauvaise
What a shockingly ignorant contribution from someone with a gripe about an Industry that has made tremendous inroads into conquering the myriad of diseases that nature has been throwing at us since the origin of man.
Today it cost about three Billion Euro to bring a new pharmaceutical product through the development phase and receive a license for it to be marketed in the larger countries in the world.
This doesn’t mean that the new medecine will be profitable or even moderately successful and many don’t even cover their development cost but hope springs eternal with an industry that traditionally returns a five percent nett nett profit.
Your whinge is that we don’t develop new drugs for an Ebola type virus that year on year infected some one or two hundred patients!
What financial contribution would you make towards the many hundreds of diseases for which we have no current treatments. Should we ask Governments to impose a levy on your income to cover such research! I’m sure you won’t mind.

@Ryan and @Richard, are you really interested in the gray world of big pharma? Check this out and come back to me: https://www.change.org/p/requesting-that-sloan-kettering-cancer-center-acknowledge-their-positive-laetrile-studies

They have given stockpiles of experimental drugs to the Africans, but don’t let that get in the way of your cartoonish assumptions about the big bold white rich doctors keeping the drugs from the blacks.

We don’t know yet what is curing xyz person because randomized placebo controlled trials are not yet complete.

Ryan we do know what certain drugs are supposed to do though and one of the commentators I’ve heard was talking about using the better targeted drugs . Ebola tricks the immune system into not recognising it’s presence u til the virus has already replicated . Once the body gas recognised it goes into over drive and that’s when the hemorrhagic phase starts and there is no hope at that point. Stopping the virus from replicating itself is what’s needed and those are the drugs that need to be given out and given as early as possible .

We can’t give out unproven untested drugs to people when they have not been through proper clinical trials. People have this idea that ”sure they’re dying anyway, why not just try them they’ve nothing to loose” there was a lot of that when HIV/AIDS first came along and there was a big ethical quandary over it.
The case fatality rate (much reported to be 90percent) for this outbreak is actually 50-70% that means 3-5 out of every 10 could survive. Now if we give them an untested drug that drug may kill someone who otherwise might have had the right immune set up to fight it off, that’s why we can’t just ”try it anyway” because we could kill people that might otherwise recover.

We don’t have enough data yet to determine who is fighting it off cos they have natural immunity or took in a small number of virus particles enough to be fought off, and who is fighting it off from drugs.
The only way to determine that is to give one group a placebo and one group the real thing and study the side effects and it’s effect on the virus over a long period of time.
Even approved ”safe” drugs can have massive negative side effects, there is a kidney cancer drug that can cause spontaneous holes to appear in your intestines, there is no way to know what effects these new drugs could have. To give out a totally untested drug would be incredible reckless and irresponsible…but it’s a moot point anyway.
There are not 1000s of stockpiles of these drugs sitting in warehouses some of them only have like 50 vials in existence, there is not enough to give to even 10percent of the infected not enough has been produced because they’re still at experimental level..

I agree on the limited supply of experimental drugs . They are in very short supply . I think in this instance though we need to listen to the medical professionals who are saying it’s worth trying certain drugs . It’s a more informed opinion . A calculated risk granted but some deem this risk worth taking . At the moment the only drug that seems to be in the frame for wider use anyway is zmapp and that has shown show success.

The mistake people are making is the old logical fallacy ‘After therefore because of’ just because someone got better after given the treatment does not mean the treatment cured them.

100s of people this very week are packed into emergency rooms to demand antibiotics for the common cold thinking they have the influenza or strep throat etc some of the docs give in and give them the meds, then they assume they got better a few days later because they took the drugs, but what actually happened is the cold ran it’s normal course and your immune system fought it off, the antibiotics did nothing at all (other than build up a resistance that will screw all of us whenever a real pandemic happens…)
It’s not being given to the whites because they’re white, it’s being given to imported cases or evacuated cases (which include black people) because it’s at least ethical (somewhat) to try a drug ‘just in case’ on one person under controlled conditions as a last resort, but thats a million miles from mass producing it and handing it out to thousands of people through a broken healthcare system.

Don’t be so naive Michael.

She was ‘White’ and ‘European’.

‘Luck’ has nothing to do with it …

Your bringing race into Ebola????

Her infection was picked up at an early stage. Being a nurse and having been in contact with an Ebola patient she knew what to look out for. She had proper supportive treatment like hydration which helps . It’s likely was in better health to begin with than many Africans where nutrition can be poor . We also don’t know if other experimental drugs were used in her treatment. Using untested drugs can be a double edged sword. Using it in Africa with limited results can lead companies open to the accusation that they are testing their drugs on poor African populations . Regardless people should be given the option. Screening needs to improve in Africa. The sooner the infection is picked up the better by all accounts .

@Broadside stop talking nonsense, the African guy who brought Ebola to the US was also given experimental drugs.

He was Ryan but only five days after his admission to hospital and after his condition had worsened. It was most likely guven too late

That was due to an administrative screw up, the premise of his comment was black people are denied drugs, and that premise is factually wrong.

There are other takes on why the drug was delayed other than an administrative screw up and there has been huge criticism around this delay but it’s more likely in that mans case the delay in recognising his illness as Ebola and being sent home from the ER was more of a factor in his death . It’s very difficult to look at the body collectors scooping bodies of babies and not think treatment has been denied to these people. It’s probably more first world thrud world rather than race but regardless it’s a global problem and finally it’s being recognised as such

I don’t think racism was at play in that situation.

The racism is in people demanding an entire continent (85% of which has no ebola cases) be quarantined and cut off from food, aid, trade and medical supplies to protect us whites from a scenario (Joe Public getting ebola) that is less likely than us drowning in our own bathtub. Meanwhile, Spain struggles to prevent a spread and not a PEEP about a travel ban for Spain, or Texas no travel bans are only for the blacks apparently.
That’s the real racism in this debate.
When we siad there are no flights to Africa we meant subsaharan Africa but there are people coming on saying ”BUT THERE ARE FLIGHTS TO MORROCOO”…right…if there was a disease in Cuba would you ban flights from Canada? IT’S NORTH AMERICA IT’S ALL NORTH AMERICA ISN’T IT???
You’d never hear that, but when it’s Africa you hear it as a serious suggestion.

A school in the US canceled the visit by an African woman due to fears of Ebola…the school was in the US…there were no bans of Texans, there were no bans of Spanish, no bans of French…just Africans.
That’s the real racism here, the hysteria has more racism at it’s root than anything, oh the big bad darkies from scary Africa are gonna come get you in the night and give you ebola don’t tell me that’s not f____g racist but an administrative f__k up in a hospital is.
Government is inherently inefficient, they make mistakes, they screw up, that’s what they do, and that’s what caused the delayed diagnosis not racism.

A school in the UK did the same to an English woman living in Sierra Leon and her son. They visit most years but are not welcome this year.mi don’t suppirt any flight bans . Containment is not going to happen that way. It’s going to happen with proper healthcare and education in the affected countries.i am honestly not sure why people are going on about expirimental drugs anyway for Africa when honestly most Africans that are affected need hospital beds doctors ivs basics. Drugs won’t work without a proper healthcare system in place. We can’t have a situation where Ebola victims are sat outside of hospitals in the mud as there are no places for them in the hospitals. Sort the basics and then talk about drugs . A huge amount of people are dying in their homes through fear and ignorance . Education and basic healthcare first then drugs ASAP after that us in place.

While I don’t think race is a factor I think socioeconomics IS.

If there was an ebola outbreak in Europe the US would have thousands of soilders over here helping us, USAID and Americorps would be swarming the continent, US hospital ships would be docked all over the EU, the Russians and Chinese would be competing to get the good will in their direction so they could have a new Geopolitical ally post-epidemic.
We’d have shut down non-essential intercity road and major gathering places and there would be US and Aus and NZ and Canadian troops enforcing quarantine zones and supplementing us with port security. They would be spending a trillion dollars on the venture, I know that because I’ve seen some of the plans and know people involved with the plan for just that event in Europe.

We’d never have a situation where only 100k had been actually sent, that would be being spent every hour or two if this was Europe that was infected.
Think about the 2TRILLION the UK and US spent going to a war of choice (and aggression) in Iraq…can you imagine what kind of world we could build if we put those kind of resources into healthcare and agriculture rather than the arms industry? Even half of what was spent in Iraq spent in Africa would end this problem.

Yes, I’m ‘bringing race into Ebola’.

Why have 4,000 plus people in Africa died from Ebola, yet this Spanish lady has survived it? Because she’s ‘lucky’ enough to not be a poor African …

@Ryan

European survives, African “Who **Brought Ebola to the U.S. ** given experimental drugs”

And you don’t see the connection?

@Broad don’t be an idiot. Biology is what it is, the virus does not give a witches tit if you’re african or white it will kill you just the same, human cells all look the same regardless of race or skin color. Plenty of Africans have survived I don’t know if you’ve bothered to look at the actual data but nearly 50% of the people infected have survived, and many of them have gotten experimental treatments you wrongfully seem to think they have been deprived of. They can’t hand them out to everyone because they’re not properly trialed yet it’s that simple.

No I don’t see the connection because I know what the hell I’m talking about and there is no connection, thousands of Africans have survived it has to do with the human immune system and how many virus particles they intake not what their skin color is.
Duncan DID BRING THE VIRUS INTO THE US that’s a fact, am I supposed to pussyfoot around that so some randomer on the internet won’t think I’m a racist?

He was given every drug they could try, so your race angle is disproven by the facts.

My hope is that after this outbreak is over there will be long term investment in healthcare in west Africa. This is not the only fatal hemorragic disease these people have to deal with . It’s time to stop firefighting and put proper love no term plans in place

They didn’t have any zmapp left to give that man in Dallas and Dr Kent was donating blood for victims in the hope it would improve their immunity. No co ordinated response there at all . It says something that two people got infected there but the body collectors that Sky news followed had been doing their job for six months dealing with freshly dead corpses every day and not one member was infected. That tells you about awareness and procures. These guys know their stuff.

Thomas Duncan was given Brincidofovir. Zmapp has not yet been involved in any clincial trials, whereas Brincidofovir is already at Phase III.

Race was not a factor in this guys illness. Perhaps if the family who are claiming this, had directed their outrage and moral indignation at Tomas before he left Liberia and told him to tell the truth on the questionnaire at exit screening then the two other people he infected would never have gotten sick.
They have some brass balls claiming the moral highground when their family member lied on his exit screening interview and put an entire continent at risk of a highly infectious disease.

Ah Ryan when you start a comment to someone with words “Don’t be an idiot” we know you have already lost.

@BroadSide
Do you think if 4000 plus people became infected in Ireland in a short space of time the survival rate would be 100% like in Spain? Do you think we would cope better than Africa? Or even if the same happened in Spain would they cope much better?

You’re being very black and white about this (no pun intended), The two are not comparable in my opinion.

Also black coloured?? Really?