Some Ebola Patients Should Get Placebo in Drug Tests: FDA

Bloomberg ^ | November 5, 2014

[Diogenesis]

Some Ebola Patients Should Get Placebo in Drug Tests: FDA
"Edward Cox, director of the FDA’s Office of Antimicrobial Products,
said Wednesday that some patients with Ebola need
to forgo potentially life-saving treatments so researchers
can see how they fare compared to those who receive the
experimental drugs .... Cox noted that randomised studies
would be "challenging," but they are necessary ..."

[Diogenesis]

How many of the EXEMPT will be controls?

[madison10]

Just because they got Ebola does not give the FDA the right to make them guinea pigs.

[Sacajaweau]

You know damn well, this is meant for the soldiers and it was ALWAYS Obama’s intention when he sent them.

[Black Agnes]

How many US patients have received placebos so far?

If not, why not?

[Black Agnes]

Ping.

[JT Hatter]

This is an abomination. People who think this way do not value human life. Placebos for ebola? How can they even consider the idea?

[trisham]

This is wrong.

[UCANSEE2]

Is Edward Cox going to volunteer to expose himself to ebola then take a placebo?

IF not, he should shut the heck up.

[Smokin' Joe]

This reeks of the Tuskegee Experiment sort of horrorshow for science mentality.

How about this?

All around the group who gets the vaccine will be your control group: those who do not. No placebo necessary. Compare those stats and if there isn't a significant difference the vaccine didn't work.

[Billthedrill]

Nope. That is entirely contrary to testing protocols - when a cure turns up it is not only unethical but illegal to deny it to the control group. The FDA needs to review its own rules.

[I want the USA back]

This will be called racist.

[corkoman]

Just because they got Ebola does not give the FDA the right to make them guinea pigs.

You do not recognize the risk of not having a control group for testing a new treatment. There is a big chance that the experimental treatment does nothing and the patient recovers by their own immune response. If you do not have a control ineffective treatments get commercialized and then the damage is from the assumption that it is going to help.

How many have recovered without experimental treatment? Of those who survive almost all had no treatment other than palliative - fluids and nutrition.

You do a disservice to those who volunteer for clinical trials by calling them pigs or rodents.

[Blood of Tyrants]

A double blind study is the only way to determine a drug’s effectiveness.

[Black Agnes]

Mortality rates for palliative treatment for ebola are already known and well documented.

[machogirl]

“Quotas” will be worked into who lives and who dies.

[Diogenesis]

In my opinion, this plan is EVIL because there is already
a large historic control which is near 95% death rate,
for those over 45 years old, and with n~14,000.

Any differential in survival will be immediately
clinically obvious.

Unless, the plan (which it appears to be) is to introduce
this into the American heartland forever.

[Will88]

I think there is already extensive evidence that the controls, or untreated, are dying at a rate of 70%.

[Calvin Locke]

One breast cancer drug that was in a double blind study had early results were so promising, at least for what it was intended, that they came to the conclusion that it was unethical to continue with a placebo as part of the trials.

I have a relative that was in a trial for some drug for a while. He was taking the drug to begin with, before being asked to participate in the trial.

He knew he had the placebo in the trial because it didn't cut/break in half the same way as the real stuff.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[Red Badger]

A double blind study is the only way to determine a drug’s effectiveness.

Not necessarily......................