Tired Racist Charge: Ebola And Unbiased ‘Serum Equity’

Clash Daily ^ | 8/6/14 | Jeannie DeAngelis

[Impala64ssa]

Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol are impressive people. After all, they obeyed God’s call to minister to the “least of these” as missionaries to Liberia. Dr. Brantly grew in stature when, after contracting the deadly Ebola virus, he decided to forfeit an experimental serum so that 60-year-old Writebol could have the first available dose.

Then, that night while the second sub-zero serum thawed, Brantly suddenly took a turn for the worse and was quickly administered the initial dose he had originally turned down. This is a man willing to go last and as a result, as promised, ended up going first.

Certain he was dying, he called his wife to say good-bye. But about an hour later Brantly received the IV serum, and within 20 minutes could breathe easier and his Ebola rash started to clear up. The next morning the doctor took a shower, was flown home on a Gulfstream air ambulance, and upon arrival at Georgia’s Emory University Hospital donned in a Hazmat suit, stepped out of the ambulance, and walked unassisted into the hospital.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. of San Diego, California manufactured the drug Brantly received. The trial serum named Zmapp “is a cocktail of three ‘humanized’ monoclonal antibodies that are manufactured in a group of fragrant plants or bushes known by the genus name Nicotiana.”

snip

So now that the outlook has improved and it appears that these two individuals will have a testimony to share, the political posturing has begun, and predictably the bluster involves accusations of racism. Why did the white people get the medicine while all those black people were dying?

[Impala64ssa]

Dennis Miller is right. Crying racism is so worn out and childish, it's become the new doodyhead.

[blueplum]

*Why did the white people get the medicine while all those black people were dying?*

1. Three vials of serum were sent. We haven’t been told who the recipient of the third vial is.

2.Medical staff would be considered hyperinformed of the risks of an experimental treatment and so the medical ethics issue is sidestepped with those volunteers.

3. It was Samaritan who ferretted out MAPP - and - who agreed to hold MAPP legally harmless in exchange for access to the treatment, so legal issues were also sidestepped.

4. When giving an untested-in-humans treatment to a foreign national in a foreign country without that country’s explicit approval or guarantee not to hold anyone involved in distribution legally liable, there may be legal issues as well as ethical issues preventing distribution.

5. There isn’t a vat of zMAPP sitting around and nobody knew whether it would work or not.

however, the reporter may be happy to learn that :

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it would ask medical ethics experts to explore emergency use of experimental treatments...”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/07/us-health-ebola-idUSKBN0G61ID20140807

[cpdiii]

Those doctors and nurses etc. put their lives on the line to go and help the victims of ebola. They did not have to do this but volunteered to do this.

They should be first to get an experimental cure for the disease. They earned it and their color is irrelevant.

[Sivad]

And, further, it makes sense to heal those who have the
expertise to treat the masses of people (black people, that is)
who have contracted the virus.

[fella]

It doesn’t make sense to release a weaponized disease unless you have a ready available antidote. This incident plays right into that conspiracy theory.

[Max in Utah]

The trial serum named Zmapp “is a cocktail of three ‘humanized’ monoclonal antibodies that are manufactured in a group of fragrant plants or bushes known by the genus name Nicotiana.”

Nicotiana = Tobacco (or a close relative thereof)

[hummingbird]

"Why did the white people get the medicine while all those black people were dying?"

--------------------------->

For Pete's sake!

If the medicine was given only to black people and they suddenly dropped dead, the Jacksons and Sharptons of the world would say that the white man gave it to the black man using the black man as part of the testing of the drug.

That the white man experimented on the black man because white man see the black man as expendable.

The bigotry and idiocy march on. It is tiresome.

[Veto!]

manufactured in a group of fragrant plants or bushes known by the genus name Nicotiana

Nicotiana are tobacco plants. Do smokers have some immunity to Ebola? Baseball players with a "chaw" in their cheeks?

[Veto!]

zMAPP seemed very effective, at least in the short term. Other drugs are being researched as well. A Canadian company, Tekmira, is working with the FDA right now.

[Straight Vermonter]

Why did the white people get the medicine while all those black people were dying?

If they had given the Africans the serum there would have been cries that they were experimenting on people of colors. Treating them as mere guinea pigs.