To the folks outraged that there is a 'cure' found for Ebolavirus only when white Americans are infected
You’re effectively implying that scientific research is innately racist and possibly xenophobic. Having been in the research industry for a lot of years now and being affiliated with quite a number of researchers in the medical field working with infectious diseases, that’s really not even remotely the case.
Think about it realistically. Ebola (in this case, Zaire ebolavirus, a different species to the other four existing Ebolavirus species that have been identified thus far) exists within West Africa in what is classified as epidemic proportions (1600+ cases in 6 months across four nations, with close to 900 cases fatal).
That epidemic has been facilitated by two factors: hygiene and sanitation, of which West Africa has quite poor standards (owing to a number of factors, the biggest being scarcity of clean water), and the way that the virus actually presents symptomatically (symptoms appear long after the patient is infectious and initially present in a similar manner to less serious infections).
These have allowed the initial infection to spread rapidly as we’ve seen, approaching the status of a health crisis. Also, it’s existed there for many years in one form or another; until this latest outbreak it was relatively under control and more or less dormant. It hasn’t warranted extensive research investment because it presented less immediacy than other virulents like Malaria (Plasmodium spp., which is estimated to have killed anywhere up to one half of the people who have ever lived and currently around 1 million per annum).
Now, onto the declaration of innate racism in the research field. Medical research takes a long time to yield results. It doesn’t just happen by magic – it takes effort and trying again and again to get the desired result. It also requires confirmation of results which also takes time. It also relies on actually having some vague idea where to look in the first place.
The serum ‘cure’ in question, ZMapp, has been on the table since January but has yet to be subjected to the rigours of clinical trials that ensure effectiveness and safety of medicines. It’s not a ‘cure’; it’s merely a potentially effective combatant to the virus. And it’s also potentially incredibly dangerous owing to how serums are made which is why it was offered to people both familiar with western medicine and also capable of consenting consciously to the potential risks of what they were to undertake by being effectively guinea pigs for something merely theoretically effective. It was also administered as a last ditch effort in the face of almost certain mortality.
ZMapp, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, is funded quite heavily by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or to put it another way, the American taxpayer. It exists in very small quantities; presently it’s being pushed for more funding to develop enough of the serum to push through FDA approvals (or, as will likely be the case, lobby the FDA for experimental ‘compassionate use’ authorisation).
The science behind it isn’t new or particularly groundbreaking as you might expect. In fact, the antibody that’s key to its effectiveness was first researched over a decade ago.
The research was resurrected in at least two modern studies (the first published in 2012, and the more recent in 2013, both of which focused on Macaques). And it actually takes a significant amount of time between receiving a journal study and being accepted for publication after peer review, in most cases going on for well over a year in the review phase.
Until now, the Ebolavirus genus has existed almost exclusively in the African continent (there has never been a recorded fatality outside of Africa attributed to it). This means the transport of symptomatic patients to a new continent presents inherent urgency in finding a way to stop a potential outbreak before it happens – symptomatic patients are already highly infectious and capable of passing the infection on easily through fluids (with the confirmed potential for aerosolised virulents associated with respiration). It’s already claimed close to a thousand people in the last few months, the ability for it to become an epidemic in a second continent would be disastrous.
The trouble is, the media is innately incapable as acting as an effective conduit between the scientific community and the civilian world. Our understanding of the way these things work is very specialised – we understand the practices and efforts that go into things, something that as science communicators we all try very heavily to reflect that the media has no obligation to. Also, sensationalism sells more than actual, reliable factuality.
Summarily, no, research isn’t racist. You guys just have no idea how research works. The devil is very much in the details in this case.
