No Treatment or Vaccine for Ebola, but a $1000 Pill for Hepatitis C

[Sam1]

The Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa continues to grow, and now appears to be the worst known epidemic of that disease to date. In the US and Western Europe, press reports are now raising concerns that the disease could spread there. For example, CNN, in an article entitled "Ebola Fears Hits Close to Home," was a section headed "Could Ebola spread to the US?" An ABC article was entitled, "How the US Government Could Evacuate Americans with Ebola."

Reasons for fear of spread are the increased mobility of people made possible by air travel, and the lack of specificity of early symptoms of Ebola, so infectious people may not realize the dangers their travel might pose. A US citizen with Ebola was on his way back to the US via several connections, and made it as far as Lagos, Nigeria before becoming too ill to travel further (per CNN). Making the fears worse are the high fatality rate of Ebola, the current epidemic included. According to Vox, the current outbreak is the Zaire subtype of the virus, with an expected mortality rate of 68%. Finally, there is no known effective treatment or vaccine for the Ebola virus.

Economics, not Science the Reason for Lack of Medical Options for Ebola


http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2014/07/no-treatment-or-vaccine-for-ebola-but.html

[on point]

1. Unsupported assertion. Sometimes science makes uneven progress

Not to mention hepatitis has been around longer, researched longer and impacts more people and is easier to research

Ebola is worth curing, but your rational doesn't follow

[Sam1]

2. That the length of time makes little difference is shown by

the speed and amount of money committed to AIDS research. That hepatitis impacts more people with more money is the very point of the article. And finally the author, himself a doctor, mentions that Ebola research is quite advanced and maybe about as easy as Hepatitis C research.

The authors rational, that the development of an Ebola vaccine would add little to the shareholder value of the developing corporation or the excessive compensation packages of the controlling officers and therefore is not being done, is in my opinion very well supported in the article.

The author, in fact, does do a good job of supporting his contention that in the profit driven world of the MBA, the author calls them generic managers, the lack of a large revenue stream means that Ebola is not worth curing. This is the logic of a market driven world.

[longship]

3. Studying Ebola is not easy.

First, because of the danger it likely has to be done within BSL-4 containment, only 15 of which exist within the USA.

So there is not only few facilities to handle it, but few trained to work within such facilities.

The USA has been studying Ebola since its discovery. But one can be sure that they will now be putting more effort into it.

Economics has nothing to do with it, unless it is funding from a science illiterate Congress.

[Pakid]

4. Don't bet on more studying of it

The idiots in the Republican party could careless about any disease unless it will become a problem for the 1% until that happens they will more than likely block any increase in spending on research into it!

[Sam1]

5. from the Article:

Bausch says that the obstacle to developing an Ebola vaccine isn't the science; researchers have actually made really great strides in figuring out how to fight back against Ebola and the Marburg virus, a similar disease.

'We now have a couple of different vaccine platforms that have shown to be protective with non-human primates,' says Bausch, who has received awards for his work containing disease outbreaks in Uganda. He is currently stationed in Lima, Peru, as the director of the emerging infections department of Naval Medical Research Unit 6.

[longship]

6. I am aware of that one.

I read about it the other day. In fact one of the two patients being transported to Atlanta was treated with an experimental vaccine, the woman missionary. Maybe they want her in a controlled environment. Or that's what I would want if it was my vaccine.

A vaccine breakthrough would be a big deal.

[lastlib]

7. Well, don't expect any help for funding research from our Congress.....

since this affects brown people......