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Obama Administration Seeks $58M To Put (Partly) Toward Fighting Ebola

Posted by timothy on from the let's-order-a-pizza-and-a-dishwasher dept.

The Associated Press reports (here, as carried by the Washington Times) that The White House is asking Congress for $58 million above current levels to speed the production of promising drugs to fight Ebola and additional flexibility for the Department of Homeland Security to cope with the thousands of unaccompanied Central American children still arriving at the southern border. ... [T]he $58 million request for the Centers for Disease Control would help the agency ramp up production and testing of the experimental drug called ZMapp, which has shown promise in fighting the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. It would also help keep the development and manufacturing of two Ebola vaccines on track. The White House request also seeks to use $10 million in unused balances at the Department of Health and Human Services to help with the Ebola outbreak in Africa. The scarcity of ZMapp, the most promising treatment known for Ebola, is such that the third U.S. doctor to have been returned after being infected by the disease will be treated without it.

10 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Nice by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    With Ebola in the news, its the popular thing to do.

    1. Re:Nice by ruir · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And then, the only sane thing to do that is suspend commercial flights and quarantine people who are coming from that part of the world, is not done.

    2. Re:Nice by ruir · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Have you notice this world is ever so increasingly small with the ever commoditisation of fast transports, and that we have multicultural immigrations pretty much anywhere, which often live the same or only slight differently than in their original cultures/origin? And last time I noticed, once they start bleeding and vomiting, for instance in a packed plane, bus, mall, supermarket, or hospital waiting room, it will be mayhem no matter how much they follow personal higiene.

    3. Re:Nice by guises · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you seriously trying to imply that the only reason to address an ebola outbreak is to score popularity points? Or are you saying that your personal bias is so strong that if Obama's name is on it, it must be bad? Even when it's as no-brain obvious as this?

      Reporter: "Thousands of people are dying from a massive outbreak of a terrible disease."
      Reporter: "Libya's health infrastructure has been completely overwhelmed. A number of hospitals, including their largest, have been closed and quarantined."
      Obama: "Yeah, we should do something about that."
      Mr D from 63: "Oh ho! Look who's jumping on the bandwagon!"

    4. Re:Nice by Kaenneth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sure Ebola /could/ mutate to spread easier... but the common flu could more easily mutate again to become more deadly, and it's already here.

  2. Partly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "To Put (Partly) Toward Fighting Ebola...". The majority of it will go to buy votes.

  3. Oh wow by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You people are horrible.

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    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  4. Re:Why? by DarkTempes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given that it can only be transferred through bodily fluid I don't think it's really that big of a risk to treat patients in the states. We have isolation wards for a reason.

    My impression is that the whole reason it's even spreading in Africa is because of the culture there -- people don't trust the doctors and bad burial practices and lots of ignorance and superstition.

  5. $58 million? You could almost buy... by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a fraction of a fighter jet for that!

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    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
  6. Re:They didn't build that by Guppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ZMapp is produced by a private firm

    If you follow the money, it'll lead back to a grant funded by the Federal government (in this case, both the U.S. and Canadian governments).

    Ebola therapeutics were (and probably still are) anticipated to be a profit-less product segment, as far as the civilian commercial market is concerned. The affected population can't afford any resulting product, plus previous outbreaks were sporadic with small numbers of fatalities. The only potential "customers" -- at the time research was initiated over a decade ago -- were governments who might be interested in stockpiling treatments for future bio-defense use.

    Now, a few of the large pharmaceutical companies still maintain and fund tropical-diseases divisions, despite the lack of profitability (for instance, Glaxo's division is largely a legacy of British Colonial days, which they've carried ever since). But I highly doubt a small biotech like Mapp Biopharm would ever do so without being paid most of the cost up-front.