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Ebola vaccine abandoned in 2008 after showing promise in trials
The Washington Times ^ | October 20, 2014 | Tom Howell, Jr.

Posted on 10/21/2014 5:04:34 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The pitch was intriguing: U.S. health officials wanted to fast-track trials for an Ebola vaccine and sounded the call for volunteers.

Charles Sullivan called up the hotline on a whim, figuring the National Institutes of Health already had filled its queue and wouldn’t need him. But he was accepted for three rounds of shots of a deactivated virus, a year’s worth of blood analysis and a $900 check for his trouble. The clinical trial went well, and the vaccine seemed promising.

A decade later, the country is still waiting for a vaccine amid a worldwide Ebola outbreak, and Mr. Sullivan is wondering what happened to the research conducted on him and 27 other test subjects in 2003.

“It seems like they’re fast-tracking the same thing they were fast-tracking a decade ago,” said Mr. Sullivan, a 51-year-old resident of Rockville, Maryland.

The latest outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa, infected Americans on U.S. soil for the first time, and left political leaders and health officials clamoring for a vaccine.

Treatment options for those who are infected are also limited. An experimental drug, ZMapp, was given to Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, American aid workers who contracted Ebola in West Africa. Yet supplies of the drug, derived from tobacco plants, have been exhausted and must be rebuilt.

Federal health officials have blamed poor funding for the lack of a vaccine. NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told The Huffington Post that the country probably would have had a vaccine if not for budget cuts, and the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases backed up that claim in a statement to The Washington Times.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: anthonyfauci; bethesda; cdc; ebola; ebolagate; ebolainamerica; ebolaphonywar; ebolavaccine; franciscollins; funding; health; nih; patents; stemcells; trials; vaccine; zmapp
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To: butterdezillion

Let me tell you what this goes. An organization has fronted this as a money-maker. In 2008....when you talked about Ebola, it was affecting hundreds per year, and it was a ZERO-profit deal for any drug company. A real company will tell you they need a drug to generate at least $100 million a year for sales to have general interest.

Well, they patiently waited. And now, they have a government that is going to pay hundreds of millions up front, to cover production. They may act like it’s all fresh research, but apparently, this story shows a lot of past research.

Now, here’s the stinker in this whole deal. African countries throughout the past decade....dealt with Ebola and had a 10-percent survivor rate. Think about that rate.

They did it with marginal doctor and nurse knowledge in Africa. They did without a lot of fever reduction drugs. They did it with marginal use of IVs. They did it with poor sanitary habits in their Ebola quarantine quarters. They did it with almost no high-tech liquid foods. And they did it with NO wonder drugs. Think about those rates and the variables.

So here we are....US with top notch medical knowledge, clean hospitals for the part, lots of fever reduction drugs, and various technology elements to utilize, and currently NO wonder drugs. I think we could easily reach 90-percent survivor rates without the wonder drugs. But if you had twenty-billion dollars....we could certainly arrange a bogus wonder drug and make you pay for it.

All elements of this mess....for you to sit and ponder about. Your government lies to you. The drug companies lie to you. The CDC lies to you. And you are left to wonder about who is lying the least, and who you might want to trust to some marginal degree. Such is our life today...as miserable as it sounds.


21 posted on 10/21/2014 7:22:46 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: Slyfox

Could it be that when Hussein needed money to fund his pet projects, he pulled it away from ebola and gave it to Solyndra?


It’s kindof like Solyndra: his crony Infectious Diseases Czar pulled funding from the company that was making progress on, and actually produced some of, an Ebola vaccine which was used and gave the money in a no-bid contract to Democrat cronies.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/10/20/3-ways-obamas-new-ebola-czar-is-like-his-old-ebola-czar/


22 posted on 10/21/2014 7:26:03 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

All the money went to African breeding programs to export more African voters to the USA to fund more money to send to Africa for more breeding programs.

Waiting for it to go exponential now....


23 posted on 10/21/2014 7:29:45 AM PDT by soycd
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To: lepton

I work at the before- and after-school proqram at the local middle school. I’m kind of a mom fiqure to a lot of the kids because they know I care. Yesterday morninq a qirl came in and without a word put her head on my shoulder, sobbinq. I asked her what was wronq and she said her stomach felt terrible. Her eyes were both really red. I felt her forehead and it seemed like she miqht have had a fever. I asked if somebody was at home to take care of her and she said her mom was there; she had come to school to eat breakfast to see if that would make her stomach feel better. I told her she should qo see the nurse, and she did.

If she had Ebola, I could have qotten it just from touchinq her sweaty forehead if the antibacterial soap I washed with before eatinq didn’t kill the virus on my hand. I wasn’t a careqiver or fiance’; I was just a lady at school who makes it clear to the kids that she cares about them. It makes no sense that I would be more at risk from just that simple thinq than this man’s fiance’ with whom he slept durinq his contaqious time.


24 posted on 10/21/2014 7:49:32 AM PDT by butterdezillion (Note to self : put this between arrow keys: img src=""/)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Was this before or after all those scientists died?


25 posted on 10/21/2014 8:44:29 AM PDT by Califreak (Hope and Che'nge is killing U.S./CDC=Contagion Distribution Center)
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To: butterdezillion
I agree with you.

More and more people are becoming disillusioned with Obama. He is the epitome of a lame duck.

Even Michael Moore is disappointed - the fat slob is singing - the end of the Kenyan opera must be near.

Chances are he will eventually go down in flames through his own effort.

26 posted on 10/21/2014 9:05:08 AM PDT by Slyfox (Satan's goal is to rub out the image of God he sees in the face of every human.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They had an inoculation for Mutawba in Outbreak the movie. The Chinese recently mentioned an Ebola treatment reserved for the PLA. Does USAMRIID have an experimental of its own?


27 posted on 10/21/2014 9:11:46 AM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: lepton
The new ebola czar will report directly to Homeland Security?

Well, that means hospitals better take care of their own and not count on the Obama administration. Because all Hussein will do is make sure that we will have buckets to put all the ebola vomit in. And he will force America to step in it.

28 posted on 10/21/2014 9:17:52 AM PDT by Slyfox (Satan's goal is to rub out the image of God he sees in the face of every human.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“Ebola vaccine abandoned in 2008 after showing promise in trials”

Another example of Ebolagate or Obama’s Phony War on Ebola.

Why are the so called experts at CDC, Homeland Security and TSA not stepping up and doing their job to protect Americans from passenger fly ins with Ebola or exposed to Ebola in countries raging with deadly Ebola, without banning or severely restricting air travel from Africa?

They don’t want to. Again, this is a prime example of the need to use Cui Bono, the old Latin phrase which asks the question, “Who benefits?”

o Cui Bono or who benefits with no real travel restrictions from Africa to the USA?:
1. The airlines, which fly people and freight from and to Africa.
2. The businesses which service the air lines and need their business.
3. The need of our left wing progressives to have another unending “war” like the war on poverty. A war on Ebola is the ultimate wet dream of liberals, who never let a good crisis go to waste.

#1 and #2 above are obvious to any of us with half a brain.

#3. Requires a little explanation. A War on Ebola will make the War on Poverty look like a very small wet puddle compared to a full scale and large flood like Noah’s.
A liberal/progressive War on Ebola will require us to hire millions of people with worthless degrees or psychiatric problems to fight this war. We will have shore to shore facilities to provide offices for these previously unhireables. They will require hundreds of thousands of supervisors to motivate and to monitor them and to waste money like VA hospital administrators do now.

Our worthless State Department will expand our embassies around the world to the size of the one in Baghdad to house and office the warriors of the War on Ebola.
Moosella and Jill Biden and the worthless Follywood idols will do thousands of PSAs telling us to spend our time and money supporting the War on Ebola.

They will start marches, marathons and other BS social circle jerks to raise money and to support the War on Ebola.

They will pour gallons of ice water or whatever on sports idols and Follywood idols to support the War on Ebola.

Our military will no longer fight Isis and bad guys, they will be included in the great War on Ebola. Barrack E Obolabama has started that process with our troops in and being sent to Western Africa to fight Ebola.

None of the above will save lives. Like the War on Poverty and other expensive liberal wastes, this fight Ebola will thrive without any real positive results. Each death from Ebola will result in more money and more worthless people involved in the War on Ebola.
They will tie the War on Ebola with Global Warming to take away any rights we have left.


29 posted on 10/21/2014 9:53:40 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (I, Barrack E Obolabama support the left wing's war on Ebola. Fox News & Republicans will fight me.)
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To: Ozark Tom

[Experimental Ebola treatment protects some primates even after disease symptoms appear]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130821152059.htm

“By requiring both a documentable fever and a positive diagnostic assay result for Ebola infection before initiating treatment in these animals, we were able to use MB-003 as a true therapeutic countermeasure,” said senior author Gene Olinger, Ph.D., of USAMRIID.

MB-003 is manufactured in a plant-based system by Kentucky BioProcessing in Owensboro, Kentucky

“Our facility can produce these proteins in two weeks at a substantial reduction in cost to other production methods,” said Bratcher.


30 posted on 10/21/2014 9:55:35 AM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: butterdezillion

Yeah, based upon what you did, you would have a fair chance of catching it...but not a certain chance.

Did he sleep with her (sexually) during the contagious period? If so, I missed that.


31 posted on 10/21/2014 1:24:13 PM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

AIDS sufferers linger and vote longer, so AIDS research is on front burner, Ebola on back.


32 posted on 10/21/2014 3:05:05 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: butterdezillion
It’s been so bizarre that Duncan’s qirlfriend and her kids didn’t contract Ebola. Makes me wonder if they were immunized at some point. Maybe before she traveled to Liberia in Auqust...

They didn't contract Ebola because Ebola is only contagious through close contact (spending a prolonged period of time within 3 feet). Obviously, they avoided having any close contact with Mr. Duncan once he got sick.

33 posted on 10/21/2014 5:53:00 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It would not matter if there were infinite funding for Ebola vaccine or antiviral drugs. There is a major problem with testing the vaccines and drugs to see if they work in humans.

Phase 1 clinical trials is safety testing. No problem there.

Phase 2 clinical trials is dose finding. No problem there.

Phase 3 clinical trials is efficacy testing—to find out if the stuff works.

That’s the problem. That’s because no one will volunteer to be purposely infected with Ebola to see if a vaccine or drug works. There is no way to ethically test Ebola interventions.

With an outbreak going on, there are ways to test for efficacy, but they are still ethical minefields. The only way to tell if a drug works is by comparing groups that receive it to those that don’t.

Phase 3 clinical trials typically involve thousands of volunteers. There has never before been an outbreak with enough victims to even do a phase 3 trial. And no healthy person is ever going to volunteer for one.

Funding is NOT why Ebola treatments and vaccines don’t exist.


34 posted on 10/21/2014 6:14:48 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Anyone else find the Washington Times website unreadable due to advertising and flash crap?


35 posted on 10/21/2014 9:31:49 PM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Of course, in 2008 Prez OBOZO was too busy making sure his buddies on Wall Street got bailed out to make sure science got funded.


36 posted on 10/25/2014 1:39:12 AM PDT by ReagansFreedomEagle
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