Linda and Mitzi
She later ran off with the big orange tomcat next door.
Mitzi, that is - not Linda
It would be difficult for anyone not physically located on
an asteroid to be unaware of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. As of today (8/9/14) at least 1000 people
have died, in five separate countries. Many
more are infected. Currently, under the
best of circumstances one’s likelihood of
surviving an Ebola infection is less than 50%.
What to do?
Well, other than quarantine and hospital care, there’s not
much in the weapons arsenal at present.
If only there was a drug that would kill the nasty little wormlike
monster. Well, there is, but there are
problems.
A tiny company called Mapp Pharmaceuticals, from San Diego,
has something they call ZMapp. They make
the stuff somehow using tobacco plants.
(Hooray! Finally tobacco is good
for something.) Doses of ZMapp have been
given to two white American medical workers, who contracted the virus in the line
of duty. As of this moment they are both
alive, and one claims to be doing well.
So, inevitably, the question is asked: “How come the drug
went to white Americans, and not to Africans?”
Well, in its magisterial way, the NY
Times has provided an answer. Here
it is:
Here are some facts that must be considered. First, there is damned little ZMapp in
existence. (Mapp Pharma has only nine
employees, and I suspect that tobacco doesn’t grow well in San Diego. If only the company was located in Humboldt
County & marijuana would work as well as tobacco!) It
will take so long to manufacture a significant supply of the drug that the Ebola
outbreak should already have run its course.
Also, ZMapp has not been clinically tested – in fact; it hasn’t even
properly finished the obligatory preliminary animal trial. Imagine what would happen if Mapp Pharma gave
the stuff to a bunch of Africans, most of whom then died. Actually, you don’t have to imagine –
something very similar happened to Pfizer in 1996, with dire consequences.
The ethical question of how to dole out the drug apparently
is sufficiently perplexing and important that the World Health Organization has
summoned a group of medical ethicists to discuss it.
So, anyway, the question is “fraught”, whatever that
means. What do you think?
No comments? Well, I’ll by-God comment. I n this season of Ebola you might want to pick up a copy of a book by Robert Preston, called The Hot Zone. It was published some 20 years or so ago, and concerns a previous run-in Homo sapiens experienced with Ebola sp. The book made quite an impression on its many readers. On the book jacket Stephen King is quoted as saying “The first chapter of The Hot Zone is one of the most horrifying things I have ever read in my whole life – and then it gets worse.”
ReplyDeleteConventional wisdom says that Ebola cannot travel through the air. According to page 65, this isn’t true.
I read that book and I am not reading it again! It is too real with what is happening now and will just make me sad.
ReplyDeleteWell, I did read it again. It isn’t as frightening the second time through – because, of course, you remember how it all comes out. On p. 287, however, I ran on something that might be a little profound. The author (Preston) speculates that the emergence of these viruses (e.g. Ebola, Marburg, HIV) may be a result of we humans over-running the entire surface of Earth. Maybe filoviruses are the immune system of Gaia, combatting a pest that threatens to get out of control. A long time ago I used to tell my Geology 101 students that Homo sapiens was something like a skin disease, then plaguing the surface of the earth but destined to be neutralized. I was talking about what came to be “global warming”, and mainly trying to be funny. Maybe I was right. I don’t believe in all that Gaia nonsense, of course, but maybe there’s something important here.
DeleteIn the spirit of “Know thy Enemy”, here is a brief summary of the biology of the Ebola virus, from The Economist.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.economist.com/news/international/21625807-you-can-do-lot-damage-just-seven-genes-killer-close-up