An Ebola Vaccine Is Not the Answer

The Atlantic ^ | 08/06/2014 | OLGA KHAZAN

[SeekAndFind]

In a widely shared Onion article from a few days ago, scientists "announced" that an Ebola vaccine was still 50 white people away. This was a jab at pharmaceutical companies, who, cynics think, will only set their R&D wheels in motion if there's money on the horizon. Hundreds of poor Africans die? No drugs. Old rich men can't have sex? All the drugs.

That's not entirely true, of course. It does take a big pharmaceutical company to get a vaccine approved for use in humans, but drug companies aren't evil—at least not irrationally so. They tend to throw resources into vaccine development if there's a chance that they might recoup their investments. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, is already pretty far along in developing a vaccine for malaria.

But malaria kills a child every minute. Meanwhile, here's a look at how many people die from Ebola compared with other deadly diseases:

Olga Khazan

Ebola's on there, I promise. It's just that, with 900 or so deaths, it's barely a blip compared to the others. Ebola is horrifying, but it's also sporadic—between the big 2001 outbreak and this one, only a few dozen people have gotten sick every year or two. And the current outbreak has spread among a handful of poor countries that all have weak health infrastructure. Drug companies aren't eager to develop a vaccine if they aren't sure who would buy it.

That's why the job of funding vaccines for diseases like Ebola usually falls to governments. And in this case, the U.S. government is actually working on a vaccine that has already been shown to work in monkeys. If it proves effective in humans, it could start to be used as early as next year.

[matthew fuller]

"But malaria kills a child every minute"

Only in combination with Rachel Carson.

[Little Ray]

Yep. The people who condemn pharma corps are same ones who deny folks DDT to wipe out the mosquito population.

[Steely Tom]

If they try it out on black people, and anything goes wrong, the entire western world will be accused of genocide.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Precisely.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

[Amendment10]

I hope that good things result from a rumored ebola virus treatment mentioned in a related thread.

FR: GMO tobacco ‘mystery serum’ rescues Ebola virus victims

[Kozak]

It’s also stupid to present cancer as one conglomerate when you are talking about individual diseases. Its the equivalent of lumping all deaths from infectious disease into 1 category.

[Truth is a Weapon]

This person is thinking wrongly about vaccines. The goal would not be to vaccinate everyone. That would be ridiculous and expensive. However a vaccine for people exposed to the virus or for health care workers would be extremely helpful to preventing the spread of the virus and very valuable for public health.

[cpdiii]

Only in combination with Rachel Carson.You obviously know the relationship between the banning of DDT (using phony data) and the astronomic rise in Malaria Deaths.

Currently it is about 750,000 per year. Only one person on this planet has caused more deaths and that is Mao Teng Sung of China. He tops the list at approximately 90 million.

If history is every written correctly she will be listed as the number two murderer in the history of the world.

ps
I have had malaria and it is not fun. I was an adult and survived. It really does not kill many adults. It ravages the young and babies. It is a vicious killer.