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Anti-Ebola Drug ZMapp Makes Clean Sweep: 18 of 18 Monkeys Survive Infection

Posted by timothy on from the not-that-kind-of-monkey-trial dept.

Scientific American reports, based on a study published today in Nature, that ZMapp, the drug that has been used to treat seven patients during the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, can completely protect monkeys against the virus, research has found. ... The drug — a cocktail of three purified immune proteins, or monoclonal antibodies, that target the Ebola virus — has been given to seven people: two US and three African health-care workers, a British nurse and a Spanish priest. The priest and a Liberian health-care worker who got the drug have since died. There is no way to tell whether ZMapp has been effective in the patients who survived, because they received the drug at different times during the course of their disease and received various levels of medical care. NPR also has an interview with study lead Gary Kobinger, who says that (very cautious) human trials are in the works, and emphasizes the difficulites of producing the drug in quantity.

58 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Good news everybody by MRe_nl · · Score: 1

    Project 18 monkeys is a go.
    I for one welcome our simian overlords.

    --
    "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
    1. Re:Good news everybody by Hartree · · Score: 1

      "like lions and tigers keep their prey genetically healthy by picking off the bad ones, but you got a drug that keeps them away"

      I don't think ZMapp is a very good lion or tiger repellant.

    2. Re: Good news everybody by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Bad ones"

      That isn't how evolution works. What you meant was genetically less fit to resist predation by lions and tigers before having a chance to breed if and only if lions and tigers are a significant cause of that species not being able to breed in comparison to other factors.

      I, for one, don't give a shit about genetic fitness against Ebola. Thinking that somehow these people (or animals) "deserve" to be weeded out because they are "bad" in the sense there is something wrong with them is completely unfounded, and is nothing more than blaming the victim.

      Or trolling.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    3. Re:Good news everybody by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      If you like Ebola you are more than welcome to go to Africa and try out your 'genetic fitness' for yourself...

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    4. Re: Good news everybody by Anonanonaon · · Score: 1

      Thank-you! It's nice to see people posting sensible thoughts.

    5. Re:Good news everybody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The last time a test was attempted, we just got a few letters typed over and over and over, and the typewriters ended up full of poo. :(

      It's underway, we call this project Internet. You will have no trouble finding the complete works of William Shakespeare online. Still haven't found a way to get rid of the poop flinging and random typing though.

    6. Re:Good news everybody by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      . I'm still anxiously awaiting another test of the infinite monkey hypothesis.

      The last time a test was attempted, we just got a few letters typed over and over and over, and the typewriters ended up full of poo. :(

      Essentially a J.K. Rowling novel.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    7. Re:Good news everybody by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Drugs like this are what meddle in the affairs of intelligent parasites trying to shape and control populations.

      Virii are not the least bit intelligent by any reasonable definition. And Ebola doesn't seem to be causing any evolutionary pressure except for a resistance to itself.

      However, it seems this epidemic has exposed the lingering traces of Social Darwinism exemplified by your post, as well as - once again - demonstrated how they could be a fatal weakness if allowed to remain operative.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    8. Re:Good news everybody by ruir · · Score: 1

      You do not need to go. These fuckers are not imposing mandatory quarantine for people who is coming from infected countries. There have been a couple of scares, who apparently where false. This, and ZMapp trials, and Monsanto buying share into the company developing this vaccine... seems like a plot of 28 days later.

    9. Re: Good news everybody by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      I was talking about the mind control parasites, that cooperate with every living animal in existence. For instance, the parasite teams up with a species of wasp that requires mind controlling a cockroach to lay eggs onto. Another one teams up with a worm vehicle, and helps that worm infect and mind control snails to be eaten by birds, or ants to be eaten by cows. These mind control parasites are also responsible for all human dreams, and things like hearing voices, visions and messages of prophets in the past(Mohammed being the last one b4 they gave up on trying to fulfill prophecies anymore), or human inventions such as much of mathematics, and science, as in only through God are you able to achieve anything. The human + intelligent parasite combo is orders of magnitude more intelligent than a human by itself would be, if there existed a single human who could survive completely sterile, on its own. All life is one through them, as they reside in every living thing, and ensure genetic variability is maintained and no single organism dominates life as a monopoly, vulnerable to complete extinction of life through a monoculture vulnerability mechanism. As it is variety of answers, dumb mutations but also intelligent selection to maintain that variety of answers, or lifeforms, that Life on Earth throws as a single answer at any possible future unknown challenge to its existence. They have been around for billions of years as opposed to most other multicellular life forms like plants and animals. They make life and death decisions such as cancer, aids and ebola, though they too, are not omnipotent. It is this intellgent decision making that I was talking about, as opposed to the dumb Darwin's natural selection, as, if you look in the business world, over and over a single monopoly arises and exterminates all competitors, itself becoming vulnerable to monoculture issues, so why does such a thing not happen with life, as in a single celled organism digesting all other life, and becoming the only species left on the planet, as a monopoly. It's because such a thing is intelligently fought against, by parasites living in you, me, and everything alive around you, smarter than you or me, or at least what you and me would be without them in us. They are not omnipotent, even if they used to pretend so in the past, through the prophets and such. They don't have good answers either, but they are trying. They can only do so much. We, as in Life on Earth, have difficult problems facing us.

    10. Re: Good news everybody by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Every time you see a zit, that's an unhappy parasite that lives in you, maybe one of the dumb ones or one of the intelligent ones, who knows, but if you tried to kill it you would have very serious other issues, and probably would not succeed. The best thing to do is not to fight them but to team up with them, unless of course you are sick from Ebola. And there is such a thing as a fight, as between mind controlled ant tribes and such, and they want to maintain fighting skills, because that's another vulnerability of Life on Earth, lack of fighting skills, in case an intergalactic invasion should happen by an even more sentient species at a technological level higher than they have been able to drive humans.

    11. Re: Good news everybody by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Exactly. That's the other side of the story, the humanity part. So how do you balance humanity with the need for genetic fitness.
      In a village there may be born a retard, or a malformed, deformed person. Or a really ugly one, but that's a bit up in the air, because everyone can be beautiful. But this is how a village goes about it: if you're defective, we wish you never were born in the first place(, as in a stillborn baby that ended up barely making it, and has serious issues throughout life from it, if we knew it before conception, we would have not willingly created such an individual born to suffer, instead we would have picked what we think are genetically healthy and happy people, but us assuming to know that, to know something we don't really know, and playing God picking and choosing what kind of people should be born, needs extreme care and understanding of our limits of understanding), so we might wish you were never born in the first place, as a stillborn who barely made it, or someone doomed to suffer, even from simple things such as being too retarded, but if you happened to be born, we respect your rights as a human being equal to the rest of us, and treat you just like we would treat even the best of us, within limits of course. Everyone rejoices in hanging their eyes on beautiful people, and in villages you almost never find beautiful people, instead, if you live in one of them, at first everyone is ugly, and though time you acquire the taste of knowing that everyone is beautiful, and whoever you meet like them in the world around you, that look like them, they become beautiful too. So in a village, how the retard, or village idiot, or the person lowest ranking on the hierarchy, similar to how an omega wolf in a wolf pack, so the way that person fares, and his emotional and economic well being speaks volumes about the rest of the village. If he's happy, you know there is love in the village, and chances are you yourself are neither at the very top, nor at the very bottom as this poor fellow is, would fare at least as well as the one on the very bottom. In this sense it's almost a necessity to have a reject, or omega, or idiot in every village, and sometimes these idiots are simply strange, not totally retarded, might be smarter than everybody else in a lot of respect, but they feel first hand on their own skin any kind of hatred manifesting in the village, and people don't put up a show or try to front before them, they don't really care what the idiot thinks about them, so he gets a raw picture of things as they are, not as they are pretending to be to other people, and he can pull strings and manipulate the well being of a village more than anyone else. Without a village structure, like in the modern world where all old people are shipped off to a nursing home to live out the rest of their lives without being able to be the omegas and alphas of the village at the same time, so without a village structure that functions well, there is no good purpose for village idiots.
      Sometimes though they are just plain dumb or plain suffering in aches and pain in genetic malfunctions, and we hope that they too are on the same page that we would not want 99 of 100 people to be like them in the village, but they too wish to remain in the 1% zone, and wish to see beautiful, physically fit, smart, good personality, genetically healthy so to speak people be the norm. In a sense they develop a sense of identity. I saw a PBS production on midgets. Some of them require surgeries throughout their lives due to genetic issues, they constantly suffer in pain because of genetic issues, and they know it's genetic issues, and they don't wish the pain unto anyone. They also tend to congregate together, and marry within their group. If you ask them whether it would be a good idea not to have midgets in the world, as most of them are genetically unfit compared to more average size humans, if you put them through some sort of genetic fitness test, they will object vehemently to that. Being a midget is their identity, they are

    12. Re: Good news everybody by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      I'm glad that I can go under a pseudonym and maintain anonymity to where I can write shit like that without anybody knowing who I really am :)

    13. Re:Good news everybody by Reziac · · Score: 1

      It was supposed to be 12 monkeys. Idiots!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  2. Human Subjects by eric31415927 · · Score: 2

    When the human testing starts, should it be old people first? afftected-continent people first? family-receives-high-payment people first?

    I think they should be volunteers at the very least.

    1. Re:Human Subjects by Galactic+Dominator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it should be infected people.

      --
      brandelf -t FreeBSD /brain
    2. Re:Human Subjects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      By law in the U.S. (and most other countries), as well as health care and research codes of ethics, study participants must voluntarily provide informed consent to receive experimental treatments. It's extremely difficult to prove the voluntary part for at-risk populations including people who are elderly, poor, or undereducated. Studies of these populations require additional oversight and safeguards.

      Source: I'm qualified to perform research with participants who have linguistic or cognitive impairments and did so during my M.S. program and in my first job after graduation.

    3. Re:Human Subjects by ThatAblaze · · Score: 2

      When the human testing starts, should it be old people first? afftected-continent people first? family-receives-high-payment people first?

      I think they should be volunteers at the very least.

      If you RTFA you'll notice that human testing has already started.

    4. Re:Human Subjects by fluffy99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think they should be volunteers at the very least.

      Given the 90% mortality rate of ebola, I suspect nearly anyone infected will want to volunteer. The problem is that the drug can't be mass produced yet. 10s of doses takes months to produce using the current method, which is genetically modified tobacco plants (bit of irony there). A massive influx of resource is needed to ramp up production.

    5. Re:Human Subjects by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

      i read the fatality rate in this epidemic has been more around 40%.

    6. Re:Human Subjects by BigDukeSix · · Score: 2

      When the human testing starts, should it be old people first? afftected-continent people first? family-receives-high-payment people first?

      Real clinical trials do not work like this. If you want to do a real trial, you first have to establish a team and treatment center that can administer your therapy and collect the data you need. You then establish EXCLUSION criteria, i.e., people who will not be included in the trial (usually old people, who have an annoying tendency to die, and children, because sick kids scare the shit out of most doctors). *Everybody* else who comes to the center, who has the disease, gets offered enrollment in the trial. It's up to them if they want to participate.

      Anything else will get you laughed at, at the very least.

    7. Re:Human Subjects by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i read the fatality rate in this epidemic has been more around 40%.

      The lowered lethality is actually a bad thing. It means people aren't getting as sick, are staying ambulatory longer, and are spreading the disease to more additional people. With a lethality rate of 90% a disease will likely burn out fast. At 40%, it has more time to spread, and can kill far more people in total. Despite the lower lethality, this outbreak has killed more than any other. If the virus continues to adapt to human hosts, and the lethality falls to 10 or 20%, we are in big trouble.

    8. Re:Human Subjects by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      So apparently do the people making the decision, so Im glad that all of the important people here are agreed.

    9. Re:Human Subjects by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      Looks like in reality you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Such a person/vector would be a pathologist's fucking wet dream to forming a vaccine against the disease in the first fucking place.

      like in left for dead

    10. Re: Human Subjects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So the mortality rate is not 90% - the media is, as usual, misquoting the figure. They actually quote was something more like "a mortality rate of up to 90%" because one outbreak has had a mortality rate this high. This particular outbreak, as of yesterday, only had a mortality rate of 51%. Other outbreaks have different rates depending on local conditions, such as how good the care the patients receive is. I think the cumulative for all outbreaks since the 70's is about 65% IIRC.

    11. Re:Human Subjects by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "In reality, the worst case scenario now involves an immune host/carrier. "

      Looks like in reality you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Such a person/vector would be a pathologist's fucking wet dream to forming a vaccine against the disease in the first fucking place.

      You watch too much TV.
      You can't just find "patient 0", or "the primordial sample" as TNT's shitty show calls it, and then magically get a cure shat out.
      You can't just find some schlub who's immune and magically figure out why and make a vaccine to immunize other people.

    12. Re:Human Subjects by zAPPzAPP · · Score: 1

      The whole point of such a person would be, they are not showing symptoms,so how the duck are you going to find them?

    13. Re: Human Subjects by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      So the mortality rate is not 90% - the media is, as usual, misquoting the figure. They actually quote was something more like "a mortality rate of up to 90%" because one outbreak has had a mortality rate this high. This particular outbreak, as of yesterday, only had a mortality rate of 51%. Other outbreaks have different rates depending on local conditions, such as how good the care the patients receive is. I think the cumulative for all outbreaks since the 70's is about 65% IIRC.

      And that number is likely to be higher than reality since people who aren't very sick will be unwilling to present for care and, given the poor state of public health infrastructure in that neck of the woods, population surveillance is very hard.

      They will have a better idea in the upcoming months when they can screen for Ebola antibodies in the general population.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    14. Re:Human Subjects by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 1

      Of course not, but let me put it in sysadmin terms:
      System a is having a problem
      System b with a slightly different configuration is avoiding the problem

      When trying to solve the "problem" the normal way (Documentation, Google) fails usually you start making "a" look more like "b" until the problem goes away. Or are you saying that finding a working example of what you are trying to accomplish is not extremely valuable?

    15. Re:Human Subjects by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Of course not, but let me put it in sysadmin terms:
      System a is having a problem
      System b with a slightly different configuration is avoiding the problem

      When trying to solve the "problem" the normal way (Documentation, Google) fails usually you start making "a" look more like "b" until the problem goes away. Or are you saying that finding a working example of what you are trying to accomplish is not extremely valuable?

      I'm saying that what you said is fucking retarded horseshit based on watching too much TV.

      "In reality, the worst case scenario now involves an immune host/carrier. "

      Looks like in reality you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Such a person/vector would be a pathologist's fucking wet dream to forming a vaccine against the disease in the first fucking place.

      Your bizarre attempt to deflect with a shitty analogy doesn't change that (You think human immune systems are like computers? You think computers are fixed via documentation and google as opposed to diagnostics? You think you can make a human with ebola more like a person immune to ebola how, exactly?)

    16. Re:Human Subjects by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 1

      You might want to learn to read usernames; I'm not the GP.

      And unless you have a ", MD" after your name, you have no more qualification to discuss this than the rest of us, so why don't you take your profanity laced drivel and shove it up your ass.

    17. Re:Human Subjects by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      When the human testing starts, should it be old people first? afftected-continent people first? family-receives-high-payment people first?

      Trolls first.

      I think they should be volunteers at the very least.

      Your application as a volunteer has been accepted. Your Ebola infection should shortly be delivered and the drugs (or placebo ; not your choice which you get) will be delivered in 10 days time, by when you should have started to develop symptoms. Please take it to a nearby clinic and pay someone to inject you. Your anonymity will, of course, be protected by us, though we cannot speak for every other person you meet, including the taxi driver who takes you to the clinic.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  3. Main Problem by no-body · · Score: 4, Interesting

    with Ebola control is health care infra-structure in affected countries. A far cry from what would be necessary to contain further spread. There was one report on a radio station that there are like 10 doctors in a whole country (Africa, forgot the name).

    Even if you have the best drug available defeating the virus in a day, it won't help at all under those circumstances - spread by body fluids from infected individuals.

    The outcome can only be guessed...

    1. Re:Main Problem by Galactic+Dominator · · Score: 2

      There was one report on a radio station that there are like 10 doctors in a whole country

      That would NPR's report as well which stated 50 doctors total in Liberia after some of left during the beginning of the infection.

      http://wvpe.org/post/who-warns...

      Of course considering the mess Liberia has been in for 20+ years this outbreak is relatively minor and only receiving attention due to sensationalism.

      --
      brandelf -t FreeBSD /brain
    2. Re:Main Problem by fluffy99 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course considering the mess Liberia has been in for 20+ years this outbreak is relatively minor and only receiving attention due to sensationalism.

      No, it's receiving a lot of attention because the outbreak is not contained to a small remote village as with previous outbreaks. It's not contained at this point (partly due to the lack of govt in these areas), and there is a significant population in danger. The fairly long incubation period of up to a few weeks means this could easily be carried back to major populated areas and spread like wildfire.

    3. Re:Main Problem by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Indeed. I read a report not long ago that said doctors are dying in Africa because they don't have enough gloves.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:Main Problem by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      it's not just the extent of medical infrastructure, but also its robustness. one reason it has spread so rapidly in nigeria is that all the doctors are on strike. the doctor's union has been striking for 6 months to get higher wages (seriously, yes). this is the problem with centralized health care! (troll bait)

    5. Re:Main Problem by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Informative
      Nigeria has a centralised health care system? SInce when? It did not have one in February 2014 when I was there.

      In any case, so far, the only people infected in Nigeria are the health care professionals that treated a Liberian who arrived infected, and the families of those health care workers.

      Disclaimer: two of the deceased (a doctor and a nurse) were known to a colleague of my partner.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    6. Re:Main Problem by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

      i don't know what centralized health care really means but i do know that doctors in nigeria have a union and that they are on strike and that there are about a dozen cases in nigeria.

    7. Re:Main Problem by ruir · · Score: 1

      It depends on what you call centralised system or medical infra-structure. I remember fully well that when I was living in an African country a few years ago, you had like 50 doctors for the whole country, most of which in the capital, and maybe 5000 witch doctors.

  4. oops redux by Galactic+Dominator · · Score: 2

    you forgot to read the summary or the article

    Anti-Ebola Drug ZMapp Makes Clean Sweep: 18 of 18 Monkeys Survive Infection

    --
    brandelf -t FreeBSD /brain
  5. No more monkey deaths. by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

    Finally the monkeys are safe. Praise be.

  6. Good news for the wealthiers by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    Good news for the ones that can afford the treatment, either personally or through their government. Death for the others.

    1. Re:Good news for the wealthiers by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Of course that is pretty much the case now. If you are poor and in a third world country you are pretty much dead but if you are rich and from a first world country then you can afford to be flown back by private plane to get medical treatment.

  7. and is the usa the last resort jail / prison healt by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and is the usa the last resort jail / prison healthcare system will cover it as well.

  8. Somewhat Less Than 50 White People... by IonOtter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Looks like The Onion got this one wrong.

    Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away

    I suppose it's a commentary on the state of the world that The Onion is so often inadvertently right with their headlines.

    --
    [End Of Line]
  9. Re:and is the usa the last resort jail / prison he by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    Considering the growing fraction of US population that live in prisons, that seems fair.

  10. Donations... by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

    Who/Where can we donate to help get basic supplies to the doctors in Africa; without 98% of it disappearing into 'overhead'?

    1. Re:Donations... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Dear Sir Kaenneth,

      Please permit me to make your acquaintance in so informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a dependable and trust worthy foreign partner to transfer international donations to Africa. My name is Dr. William Monroe, colleague of esteemed Ebola expert Dr. John Shumejda of Nigeria.

      Please sir, as a humanitarian, if you can wire $189,000,000.00 USD to my Bank of Bahamas account, I can assure you that 98% of that contribution will not disappear into the 'overhead' of which you speak.

      Yours Sincerely,
      Dr. William Monroe

    2. Re:Donations... by mhotchin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF)
      http://www.doctorswithoutborde...

    3. Re:Donations... by OneAhead · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, they're the first NGO that started fighting this outbreak, and have the biggest presence in the area. Which is not a surprise given that they're one of very few (possibly even the only one) equipped to deal with biosafety level 4 diseases in the wild. With only a little bit of hyperbole, one could say they moved in where a lot of other NGOs moved out (and rightly so).

      That said, all their qualified personnel and relevant equipment is already invested into this outbreak, so a significant part of any money you donate to them right now will go to their other programs - mainly Syria at the moment. However, don't let that stop you. Apart from Syria obviously needing some attention too, MSF is pretty efficient in the way thy use their money and their approach is uncompromisingly impartial and science-driven, to the point of being shunned by deep religious conservatives (*gasp*, promoting the use of condoms) and people with political agendas (*gasp*, daring to criticize the dire humanitarian circumstances in Palestine). Which explains why they're relatively unpopular in the USA compared to the rest of the western world.

  11. 50% better! by joe3barrera · · Score: 1

    That 50% better than 12 out of Twelve Monkeys!

  12. Risk Management by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Look, I'm all for getting as much Zmapp to patients as is possible. I think a lot of people are agreement on this.

    But we also need to do something about the effed up process of the approval of drugs and vaccines for these deadly diseases.

    I'm thinking specifically about the malaria vaccine that has been known to be effective since '96/'97, but which has been held up for extended testing trials by (IIRC) the British drug regulators, who again put a hold on it this spring because it might not be entirely effective in newborn infants.

    Meanwhile two million children are dying every year from malaria. This is a really, really, really, screwed up situation, and we have an ethical obligation to do what we can to put an end to these processes.

    Even if the latest delay is "only" three months, that's a half million kids or so. It's unconscionable how poor the risk management analysis is - the perfect can be the very, very deadly enemy of the good. And so can drug-agency bureaucrats.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Risk Management by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's easy to say when the sample of drugs you have is those that have passed approval. If the requirements are relaxed, it's very hard to say what would happen without having access to information only the FDA has.

      Perhaps nothing would happen. That'd be great, but it's also a gamble. It's possible that the relaxed requirements mean a side-effect slips through unnoticed, causing as great or greater harm later in the future. It's unlikely, but it's possible, and it only takes one for everyone to panic. Probably the best example we have of what could happen is Thalidomide.

    2. Re:Risk Management by Kijori · · Score: 1

      Do you have a source for that malaria fact? I just wonder whether there's maybe more to it than just its effectiveness in newborns.

  13. Re:ZMapp experiments done on tobacco plants. by Artifakt · · Score: 1

    That depends on whether the monstrous fuck-up is just extinction of one plant variety or Triffidized tobacco.

    --
    Who is John Cabal?
  14. Re:ZMapp experiments done on tobacco plants. by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    I don't care if your bleeding from the eyeballs, leave my cigarettes alone!

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  15. Another win for bad science! by EireannX · · Score: 1
    From TFA:

    All animals that received the drug lived, no matter when their treatment started; three monkeys that were not treated died.

    We're not told the size of the control group, but if it were 18 monkeys to match the treated group, you had a very hardy set of monkeys or a less aggressive strain of the virus.