Secret serum likely saved Ebola patient - But that won't help the rest of the world

[one.of.a.kind]

"Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition was nearly reversed. His breathing improved; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous.""

"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."


http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

[fuji]

Your headline comment that it won't help the rest of the world is wrong. The data from what now amounts to a human trial will certainly help bring this treatment to market if indeed it worked.

 

[one.of.a.kind]

Your headline comment that it won't help the rest of the world is wrong. The data from what now amounts to a human trial will certainly help bring this treatment to market if indeed it worked.

Fuji get a life. You know exactly what I meant. :blabla:

It won't help those that have it now nor in the next couple of years. The article pretty much says all of this.

 

[KBear]

"Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition was nearly reversed.

Medical research is coming out with some amazing stuff. Don't know how true this is, but have heard from a few people who work in cancer research that cancer is basically beaten at the research level. They can cure mice of pretty much anything. The significant number of researchers, education, computers and the network are all coming together to help solve some difficult medical problems.

 

[Worf]

Anybody else out there apart from myself who is wondering how it is this treatment 'suddenly' came into existence? How come they haven't tried it on the hundreds of others who died as a result of the disease. Why is it that the American doctor gets the treatment and the other in Africa are left there to die?

I don't want to bring in the race issue, but maybe I should. If this thing is experimental, I am sure the sick in Africa would gladly take it to test it out to see if it works.

 

[eznutz]

Let's see if this guy get's the secret serum, if he turns out infected.


As CBS reports,

A patient at Mount Sinai hospital is being tested after traveling to a country where the Ebola virus is present, the hospital said in a statement.
The man arrived at Mount Sinai’s emergency room early Monday morning with high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms.
The man told doctors he had recently traveled to a West African country where Ebola is present, the hospital said.
The man has been placed in “strict isolation” and is undergoing various tests to determine the cause of the symptoms, the hospital said.
All appropriate steps to keep patients, staff and visitors safe are being taken, the hospital said.

 

[Aardvark154]

Absolutely amazing results - it is a cocktail of antibodies - on Thursday before he was given the serum they estimated he had days to live and was starting to hemorrhage, on Saturday he walked off the aircraft and into the ambulance.

 

[Aardvark154]

Let's see if this guy get's the secret serum, if he turns out infected.


As CBS reports,

The news media say he is testing negative.

 

[james t kirk]

Anybody else out there apart from myself who is wondering how it is this treatment 'suddenly' came into existence? How come they haven't tried it on the hundreds of others who died as a result of the disease. Why is it that the American doctor gets the treatment and the other in Africa are left there to die?

I don't want to bring in the race issue, but maybe I should. If this thing is experimental, I am sure the sick in Africa would gladly take it to test it out to see if it works.

Maybe because they have been researching it and developing it in the United States?

If African countries were carrying out this kind of research and development, then presumably they could have given it to an African first. But that's not the way it is.

The CNN link said it had never been tried before on humans and was literally a hail mary sort of thing. For all we know this guy who just was given the drug will turn to stone next week and die because of it. Drug companies don't usually want to release their drugs without sorting out the detail first.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Not to mention it's probably super expensive at this point in time. Are the African countries going to pony up the money?

That's a rhetorical question by the way.

 

[cancowboy2001]

An educated guess as to what the treatment was:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...ent-for-ebola-may-have-saved-two-us-citizens/

They were only doing animal trials at this time so very experimental.
But very cool science.

 

[elise]

Doing animal trials is easy compared to human studies. I really think this was a lets try this - if the treatment doesn't kill him he will probably die anyway. I am very sure he and his family signed legal waivers left, right and centre. Potential lethal pandemics of bleeding from every pore tend to get things moving faster.

In the US every lawyer dreams of suing drug companies thinking that it is an easy road to riches. Sad part is that it really stifles innovation and work on less lucrative treatments (like antibiotics for example).

Even if a treatment seems to work like it did here it can still easily be 10 years away before it is commercialized. All the FDA mandated rules, double blind studies, committee reviews, side effects, on and on. I wonder if Asprin (ASA) would stand a chance of passing today.

Even when they pass all the hurdles, the drug companies still face huge risks. Vioxx was a good example of something that passed and still was found to be bad. With all the class-action cases against them, drug companies are going to be slower and slower to release anything without a substantial return on investment especially when lawyers get involved because something didn't go as planned. Of course the drug companies should still be held to task to prevent them from continuing to sell medicines (only to recoup investments) if it is known to have more problems than benefits.