Slashdot Mirror
Obama Administration Seeks $58M To Put (Partly) Toward Fighting Ebola
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.
With Ebola in the news, its the popular thing to do.
"To Put (Partly) Toward Fighting Ebola...". The majority of it will go to buy votes.
When you compare against all the other assinine things that $58 M have been spent on (to the tune of being merely a drop of the bucket in larger spending bills) within pork programs, we should be jumping to take advantage of helping in this situation. The level of waste in this kind of spending is close to zero.
A red carpet rolled out, you say?
From Africa to the United States, you say?
And the Americans who have been flown back are illegal, you say?
I am only giving you credit for having an IQ higher than asphalt because you posted as AC.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You people are horrible.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Dude, I have a great idea. Let's use the people who signed up for the one-way trip to Mars to serve as doctors and nurses since they are totally expendable!!
I dont know which part you havent heard about Monsanto buying shares...inside information about being subsided by government, maybe?
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.
The administration wants $58M more money (new debt) to fight Ebola AND pay for kids at the border... How much of the $58M is for Ebola and how much is for the kids crossing the border? Oh, and in addition, they want to reallocate another $10M in unspent money at HHSto fight Ebola.
Too bad they used up a dose on the foolish doctor that gave no credit to the doctors and scientists that formulated the treatment, instead giving all credit to the invisible man in the sky who happily lets thousands die of this disease.
The only reason they attached these bills together is so that if republicans vote down the human trafficing, the democrats can complain that republicans want everybody to get ebola and die. Seriously... I know both sides play this game, but it's time we stop allowing spending bills to cover multiple, entirely unrelated projects no matter which "side" you're on, and dismanlte the whole system of riders that accomplish the same thing.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
republicans want everybody to get ebola and die.
Considering they proved that is what they want by blocking funding, you're a jerk for saying otherwise. They hate those of us that aren't old white men and want us to die. That is the way of their kind. As Rmoney said, go in the corner and die. That is what Republicans want for us.
Yet again Obama proves he is looking out for the common people by funding something that affects mainly the poor, and again the Republicans prove they hate blacks by blocking funding for something that mainly affect blacks. The hate us and want us to die.
ZMapp is not a mass-produced medication. It is an experimental treatment. Calling it "scarce" gives entirely the wrong impression -- it is amazing that it is available for clinical use at all.
It's certainly worth it to produce ZMapp in significant quantities -- people would rather take an untested drug than try to survive Ebola -- but there is no "scarcity" here. Perhaps if many people wish to try it we'll have a better idea if it actually works.
well obviously they wouldn't have to go if they don't want to. either way the hospital staff will be exposed. the point is to minimize exposure to the general population.
Why are we bringing people infected with a virulent disease that has no real cure back to this country?
Because, in all seriousness, getting an Ebola patient for your hospital's biocontainment unit is like getting a panda for your zoo.
It's an exclusive club that marks your facility as being top tier, guarantees continued funding for your biocontainment unit (which has only been used once in the past decade), gets you *loads* of local, national, and even international coverage, etc.
All the other regional hospitals will be green with envy. Just make sure you are only accepting a patient that is past the inflection point (i.e. is contagious but highly likely to recover) in order to avoid bad publicity.
That was good advice to read the article. Why can't Obama ask for a clean bill to fund this Obama thing? If he wants funding to handle the massive surge in illegal border crossers his policies encouraged, then he should pressure the Democrats in the Senate to get to work on the funding bills the House Republicans passed. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/... ).
Instead Obama is adding his illegal immigration poison pill so that he doesn't get the funding for the child illegal border crossers and doesn't get the funding to fight ebola. All he gets is political points against the Republicans (when the press blames them for Obama's mess) and a chance to usurp more Congressional power because "Congress won't act".
The article also explains how he's trying to renew the import-export bank corporate welfare by attaching it to another important bill. Unfornately, just as the immigration debate shows there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats willing to help their rich friends at the expense of poor and middle class Americans by bringing a lot of cheap labor, the export-import bank will show that that there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats willing to help their rich friends with corporate welfare.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
How did you get modded down for this? The corruption in Africa is world famous with many relief organizations complaining about how much charity funding the local governments and warlords divert to their own purposes in maintaining power.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
a fraction of a fighter jet for that!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You want to shut down all travels from Africa when only 4 countries have a significant number of Ebola case? You have no idea of the size of Africa, do you?
The comment doesn't speak about stopping immigration, it specifically refers to stopping Ebola by closing down (or quarantining) everyone coming from anywhere Africa. Including US citizen.
"subsided" has a meaning. Look it up sometime.
It is NOT, however, the verb form of "subsidy". That would be "subsidized".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You want to shut down all travels from Africa when only 4 countries have a significant number of Ebola case? You have no idea of the size of Africa, do you?
Well, be fair. I believe the AC posting above is former half-term governor Sarah "Winky" Palin. You know, who referred to Africa as a country.
Or possibly the AC is Rep Tom Marino (R, naturally), who criticized the president about Libya, saying, "Where does it stop? Do we go into Africa next?"
Proud to a 'murican!
Telephone Sanitisers won't suffice. This is too big a job for just them.
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.
Keep it up. More and more people will figure out what fever-swamp nuts you are. Keep damaging you brand and maybe we'll be rid of you soon.
Could we at least try with the lawyers?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Now how the heck should that increase kickbacks?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Or they just need an excuse for raping virgins.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I mean, is there a good place to PUT IT so that something good can be made to happen? (Instead of pure waste?)
I've regularly seen situations where throwing more money than a certain amount at something simply doesn't help. You can only ramp up programs so fast, bring equipment into operation so fast, get people in, trained, and working productively so fast.
It's quite possible that President Obama asked the people doing the work, "how much money can you absorb right now to accelerate things?" and got told "maybe $30M...?" So he got them $58M.
Adding any more money to their efforts would just be waste. I know that my organization could absorb maybe $20M in "surprise" funding productively in a single year, any more than that and we'd just sit on the money or send it back. (I would hope we wouldn't waste it.)
If we KNEW we were going to get a year-on-year increase, and were given carte blanche to hire people and support so we could write contracts as much as we wanted, we could ramp up over a year or two to use $200M or more productively, but in a single year? No way.
Best,
--PeterM
I learned from a blog entitled Vaccines and Therapies Targeting Ebola Virus May Meet Breakthroughs that the United States National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration are collaborating to speed up the clinical trials of vaccines. They announced that, in this September, an Ebola vaccine would be ready for clinical trials. Does anybody know the latest news about this vaccine?
In fact, many years of funding by the Public Health Agency of Canada. http://www.brandonsun.com/busi...