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Possible Treatment For Ebola
RedEaredSlider writes "Researchers at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have found a class of drugs that could provide treatment for Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever. The new drugs are called 'antisense' compounds, and they allow the immune system to attack the viruses before they can do enough damage to kill the patient. Travis Warren, research scientist at USAMRIID, said while the work is still preliminary -— the drugs have been tested only on primates — the results are so far promising. In the case of Ebola, five of eight monkeys infected with the virus lived, and with Marburg, all survived. The drugs were developed as part of a program to deal with possible bioterrorist threats, in partnership with AVI Biopharma."
This, right here, is an example of the correct priorities for anti-terrorism funding.
It's much harder to cure someone who has been blown up by a bomb, I realize that. But, things like this, and harmonizing emergency radio systems, and subsidized first aid, and other sensible measures that should be done anyway but aren't only as a pure factor of economic reality, they are the first things that should be in line for funding that truly saves lives and makes people safer; and they work equally well for terrorism, natural disasters, negligent officials, and plain bad luck (unlike most anti-terrorism programs which look impressive but are essentially military in nature).
Bruce Schneier has said the same thing for about as long. But still you've got sheriffs buying robotic sentry cannons and military research into autonomous robotic assassins. It's only lucky that, like the space program, the benefits do eventually trickle down to private industry and then to the general population. But it could still be better spent in the first place, for more immediate effect.
So, what are the chances of this actually being supplied to "unimportant" people (ie. foreign countries), for fear of bioterrorist chemists engineering resistant strains?
IMO first aid should be a required class beginning in about the 6th grade, right along with household and small business microeconomics.
This isn't meant to help poor third-world countries, or to deal with natural outbreaks. The concerns you express were never part of the project's goals.
(Not saying that's a good thing; just saying that that's what it is.)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
The U.N. doesn't have any way to deal with dictatorships and warlords, since most of them are members in good standing of the U.N. If you were to expel all the nations with disfunctional governments from the U.N., it would look a lot like NATO (plus Japan and India)...
So, basically you wish that the British were still around to do all the things you say rude things about the Americans doing? Or do you somehow imagine that the British ruled their Empire without fighting in third-world hellholes pretty regularly?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
how on earth will the people affected by these diseases get these drugs in time
Don't think like an ambulance driver. If some part of the world is attacked with ebola people will be killed. The response will then be to manufacture and deploy the 'antidote' to the contaminated area and other areas that might also be at risk of attack. Meanwhile the attackers get hunted down, with prejudice, as the saying goes.
one more cure for a disease that is defeated by poverty and corruption
All the good intentions in the world are doomed in the face of corruption, of which poverty is only the most obvious symptom. A solution is not invalid only because it requires more sophistication than can exist in corrupt and impoverished places. When it's your butt on the line you aren't going to walk away from the fix just because the Congolese don't have the option. You will demand it as a right and curse anyone that fails to agree.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
The UN will address the symptoms with food and aid, but will never address the problem of dictatorships and warlords that cause this poverty and corruption.
That's because the UN was set up to help provide a way to prevent wars between nations. As long as a dictator is only starving his own people, the UN has no reason to get involved. It sucks, but the alternative is to have the UN turn into a one-world government, which could present its own set of challenges.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.