Manhattan Project for Ebola vaccine?

[moondust]

Yes? No? Maybe? Unnecessary? Silly? Already in progress? International team? Internet team? Shorten or bypass clinical trials?

Wut?

[calimary]

1. Should we even have to ask?

The answer is YES. The answer WAS "Yes."

The horse is out of the barn now. I suppose now is as good a time as any, because "now" is all we have. But we should have been on this WEEKS ago. Hell, more than that. As soon as they realized there were only TWO realistic available doses of the ZMapp treatment that seems to have worked with those original two doctors brought back here to Emory University, and effectively treated, awhile back.

And again, at least from everything I've read and seen, the effort to backtrack and retrace has been negligible. Penny-wise/pound-OBSCENELY-foolish (thank you ronald reagan!) governs everything and it has a chokehold on this country. Especially wherever republi-CONS are in charge. How's that overseas trip doin' for ya right now, governor perry? Having fun?

How's that for-profit hospital doin' for ya, Texas? How's that workin' out for ya, the one with no nurses unions? The one which is a private hospital where cost-containment is paramount because after all, it's a business and its NUMBER-ONE reason for existing is to generate a profit. Might as well rename that hospital the Keystone Kops Health Center. Because that's who's clearly in charge.

Health care should NOT be a profit center. It shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise. Profit should have NOTHING TO DO with it. Instead of being the Priority-One motivator, as it is now.

We should be on WAR FOOTING about this. Manhattan Project-style, AND BEYOND.

[kestrel91316]

4. I support official CDC takeovers of any and all hospitals that wind up with Ebola cases.

So it's done RIGHT.

The haphazard TH Pres approach is a colossal FAIL.

[seveneyes]

2. Yes and stop Ebola tourism now

Spread common sense, not Ebola.

[Earth_First]

5. What in the world is 'Ebola tourism'

Honest question.

[seveneyes]

6. Tourists flying here from hot zones

Just look at the result and panic from Duncan lying on his exit form to fly here. How many will die from his actions?

[kestrel91316]

3. Well it's underway, if you've been following the news.

Here. I'll google it FOR YOU.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ebola%20vaccine%20trials


and


https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ebola%20vaccine%20trials

The mass production of vaccines for Ebola in advance of results of clinical trials is without precedent. They want to have millions of doses at the ready the very second results look good. This may mean millions of doses of ineffective vaccines get thrown away. Huge financial gamble, but it must be done.

[moondust]

7. I have been following.

But I'm not entirely sure the urgency of finding a vaccine has been adequately conveyed or that all available resources have been brought to bear.

[deutsey]

8. I think we need something like that

The current way certainly isn't working:

AMY GOODMAN: —now the NIH says they are developing a vaccine. It sounds like this has been possible for a long time, but private corporations—and which this is usually their purview—they knew there wasn’t a lot to be made in this profit-wise. So, this is why there were so few shots available, whether it’s a vaccine or other drugs. Can you talk about the importance of public health, and are vaccines possible in dealing with Ebola?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN (university professor and faculty director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University): Yeah, I mean, the problem is, is that most of our innovation is driven by the private sector. And from their point of view, Ebola was not a predictable disease, and those who got Ebola were too poor to pay for it, and so there’s been a lack of investment. Not only were there not enough doses of ZMapp and things, but they weren’t even tested. There are only now vaccines and others going through clinical testing. And so, we really just don’t have those things on the ground.

Just want to make a very quick comment, if I can, about—we call ourselves the most advanced health system in the world, but what do we mean by that? I think what we mean by that is, is that we have the best of the best of the world. But we also have a highly variable system—so many different hospitals, so many different emergency rooms. We have over 3,500 local health authorities. Everybody is—we’ve got such different standards about what we can do. And what we need to do, as Karen says, is up our game. We need to be more uniform, and we need to have systems in place and the kind of equipment and training at every institution, so that this doesn’t happen again. It’s really unacceptable.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/15/infected_workers_slow_deployment_no_vaccines