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Broomstick wrote:Two infected American medical workers are being brought to the US. This is not without some controversy. The will be transported by private plane in isolation "pods" developed by the CDC and kept in isolation until recovered (or dead).
Keep them in BSL 4 containment or an approximation, and everyone is fine. We have better containment facilities than a 3rd world hospital in Sierra Leone.Broomstick wrote:Two infected American medical workers are being brought to the US. This is not without some controversy. The will be transported by private plane in isolation "pods" developed by the CDC and kept in isolation until recovered (or dead).
As long as proper precautions are done, aren't they supposed to not get infected in the first place?Knife wrote:Controversy being fear and fear mongering. As long as proper precautions are done, no worries.Broomstick wrote:Two infected American medical workers are being brought to the US. This is not without some controversy. The will be transported by private plane in isolation "pods" developed by the CDC and kept in isolation until recovered (or dead).
What?Grumman wrote: As long as proper precautions are done, aren't they supposed to not get infected in the first place?
Although I, personally, am not concerned with moving these people to the US the fact that viable smallpox was recently found forgotten in the back of a freezer where it had sat for several decades makes the less informed a bit twitchy when you say “proper precautions”.Knife wrote:Controversy being fear and fear mongering. As long as proper precautions are done, no worries.Broomstick wrote:Two infected American medical workers are being brought to the US. This is not without some controversy. The will be transported by private plane in isolation "pods" developed by the CDC and kept in isolation until recovered (or dead).
Well, sure, but accidents do happen. Apparently, these two were part of the group that set up the isolation wards in their area so presumably they were on site before “proper precautions” were in place and may have gotten infected while setting up the isolation wards.Grumman wrote:As long as proper precautions are done, aren't they supposed to not get infected in the first place?
Grumman wrote: As long as proper precautions are done, aren't they supposed to not get infected in the first place?
From what I saw in our press, the guy from Lagos was US national working for local government flying home. Had he not collapsed there, you'd see real panic in USA.Irbis wrote:Someone collapsed in airport in Lagos, tested positive for disease. Hopefully didn't infected anyone.
...sigh.Grumman wrote:As long as proper precautions are done, aren't they supposed to not get infected in the first place?
Presumably for the same reason that soldiers don't desert when faced with a terrible battle, they're driven by something that most people don't have.Purple wrote:Reading that the only thing I can ask is how on earth a sane man would not just resign and flee rather than work under such conditions.
I think it is super disingenuous the way the media is harping on this as a "secret serum". It is secret only insofar as it is a proprietary product under development by a pharmaceutical company that hasn't yet been approved by the FDA for human use. Saying "top secret" and other such buzz words are intentionally misleading, trying to make this sound more dramatic than it is. While it is a highly unusual move, it is far from unprecedented for experimental drugs to be used in emergency clinical situations. Also, notice how deliberately they focus on the word "serum" and glossing over the far more important descriptor "antibody". Seriously, I know it isn't news to anyone that the media is sensationalist and idiotic, but this is one of the stupidest things I've seen in recent years.(CNN) -- Three top secret, experimental vials stored at subzero temperatures were flown into Liberia last week in a last-ditch effort to save two American missionary workers who had contracted Ebola, according to a source familiar with details of the treatment.
On July 22, Dr. Kent Brantly woke up feeling feverish. Fearing the worst, Brantly immediately isolated himself. Nancy Writebol's symptoms started three days later. A rapid field blood test confirmed the infection in both of them after they had become ill with fever, vomiting and diarrhea.
It's believed both Brantly and Writebol, who worked with the aid organization Samaritan's Purse, contracted Ebola from another health care worker at their hospital in Liberia, although the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case investigation has yet to be released.
A representative from the National Institutes of Health contacted Samaritan's Purse in Liberia and offered the experimental treatment, known as ZMapp, for the two patients, according to the source.
The drug was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. The patients were told that this treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys.
According to company documents, four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection. Two of four additional monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus.
Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little understood treatment; informed consent was obtained from both Americans, according to two sources familiar with the care of the missionary workers. In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Brantly didn't receive it until he'd been sick for nine days.
The medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.
The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.
Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding.
The ZMapp vials reached the hospital in Liberia where Brantly and Writebol were being treated Thursday morning. Doctors were instructed to allow the vials to thaw naturally without any additional heat. It was expected that it would be eight to 10 hours before the medicine could be given, according to a source familiar with the process.
Brantly asked that Writebol be given the first dose because he was younger and he thought he had a better chance of fighting it, and she agreed. However, as the first vial was still thawing, Brantly's condition took a sudden turn for the worse.
Brantly began to deteriorate and developed labored breathing. He told his doctors he thought he was dying, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation.
Knowing his dose was still frozen, Brantly asked if he could have Writebol's now-thawed medication. It was brought to his room and administered through an IV. Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition dramatically improved. He began breathing easier; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous."
By the next morning, Brantly was able to take a shower on his own before getting on a specially designed Gulfstream air ambulance jet to be evacuated to the United States.
Writebol also received a vial of the medication. Her response was not as remarkable, according to sources familiar with the treatment. However, doctors on Sunday administered Writebol a second dose of the medication, which resulted in significant improvement.
She was stable enough to be evacuated back to the United States and is expected to arrive before noon Tuesday.
ZMapp has not been approved for human use, and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication. The process by which the medication was made available to Brantly and Writebol is highly unusual. It may have fallen under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "compassionate use" regulation, which allows access to investigational drugs outside clinical trials.
Getting approval for compassionate use is often long and laborious, but in the case of Brantly and Writebol, they received the medication within seven to 10 days of their exposure to the Ebola virus.
On July 30, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military responsible for any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive threats, allotted additional funding to MAPP Biopharmaceutical due to "promising results."
It's doubly sad because Ebola belongs to these poor countries diseases where big pharma decided developing vaccines, medicines, or even placebo of any sort is just not cost efficient and it's more profitable to let infected people die instead of wasting money. Aren't we living in enlightened times?Borgholio wrote:big pharma profit
I kinda get that it's not exactly like that, but it does feel a bit shitty that the corporation didn't come forward earlier.1000's die in Africa. So be it.
2 US infected, cure revealed.
Consider the response:madd0ct0r wrote:seen on tumblr:I kinda get that it's not exactly like that, but it does feel a bit shitty that the corporation didn't come forward earlier.1000's die in Africa. So be it.
2 US infected, cure revealed.
Hello? State medical universities? These people producing patent and royalty free treatments that can be used by everyone, or at least for modest fee? Just like the guys on agricultural universities producing GMO organisms without sick penalties, backdoors and terminators? And etc, etc in other science branches?Simon_Jester wrote:On the other hand, it's not obvious that the treatment would even exist if it weren't for a private corporation doing it, and if nobody bothers to pay those guys for their trouble, good luck convincing anyone to research cures for the next big horror-story disease.
So which orifice are you pulling this conspiracy theory out of? There is a plethora of research into Ebola vaccines and treatments going back to the 1990s. While it is true that Ebola doesn't get the attention of, say, cancer or AIDS research, it is ludicrous to claim that is because of some Captain Planet-style corporate villainy.Irbis wrote: It's doubly sad because Ebola belongs to these poor countries diseases where big pharma decided developing vaccines, medicines, or even placebo of any sort is just not cost efficient and it's more profitable to let infected people die instead of wasting money. Aren't we living in enlightened times?
Point.Grumman wrote:Consider the response:
1000's die in Africa. Those trying to stem the tide are cannibals and we'll burn them alive.
2 US infected. If your experimental drug doesn't work, we recognise that you tried your best.
A few thoughts off the top of my head:madd0ct0r wrote:seen on tumblr:I kinda get that it's not exactly like that, but it does feel a bit shitty that the corporation didn't come forward earlier.1000's die in Africa. So be it.
2 US infected, cure revealed.
^ This.Simon_Jester wrote:There may be legal issues in a US company performing human testing on foreigners with not-ready-for-prime-time drugs.
There actually is historical precedent for this exact sort of thing occurring. I don't have exact recollection of the details or a cite, but it came down to the west being evil for experimenting on brown people. It's a ways back in history, which is why the current generation has little to no recollection of the prior occurrences.If all you have to do is go to a foreign country and ask random infected strangers to sign a release form in order to test your 'experimental AIDS remedy,' you could practically bypass the entire normal testing regimen required to get a drug approved for human consumption. Because you'll have no shortage of AIDS sufferers willing to gamble on a new treatment.
And there's a good chance that as a result there would be huge numbers of Africans being used as if they were lab monkeys by pharmaceutical corporations, many of whom would die for lack of normal, effectual treatment. Many of them would suffer side effects of untried drugs that make their lives even worse.
Actually, at the time the drug was administered to these two patients there were exactly THREE doses of this. In the entire world. THREE. No doubt the company is producing more, but this may have (temporarily) brought research to a halt when they used the 2/3 of the world's supply on actual human ebola cases.On an unrelated note, there may literally only be a dozen vials of this stuff in the world at the moment, which were slated for part of a different test program until the owners explicitly said "let's apply this to an Ebola case or two."
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39456324/ns/h ... -DcimNfS9kI don't have exact recollection of the details or a cite, but it came down to the west being evil for experimenting on brown people. It's a ways back in history, which is why the current generation has little to no recollection of the prior occurrences.
