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Leaked Documents Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Ebola Vaccine Issues

Posted by timothy on from the how-much-for-what-benefit-to-whom-with-what-certainty dept.

sciencehabit writes Extensive background documents from a meeting that took place today at the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided new details about exactly what it will take to test, produce, and bankroll Ebola vaccines, which could be a potential game changer in the epidemic. ScienceInsider obtained materials that vaccinemakers, governments, and WHO provided to the 100 or so participants at a meeting on 'access and financing' of Ebola vaccines. The documents put hard numbers on what until now have been somewhat fuzzy academic discussions. And they make clear to the attendees—who include representatives from governments, industry, philanthropies, and nongovernmental organizations—that although testing and production are moving forward at record speed, knotty issues remain.

5 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. So 1 x F35 = 60 million x vaccinations? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If an F35 costs $337M* and "27 million doses of vaccine" would cost $151 million (half to produce and half to deliver as per TFA), then one F35 would be worth about 60 million doses of vaccine? * (https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-much-does-an-f-35-actually-cost-21f95d239398)

    1. Re:So 1 x F35 = 60 million x vaccinations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      85B / 337M = 252.22 (ebola-cost-units-per-wall-street-month)
      252.22 / 30 = 8.41 (ebola-cost-units-per-wall-street-day, assumes 30-day month)
      1440 / 8.41 = 171.22 (wall-street-minutes-per-ebola-cost-unit)
      171.22 / 60 = 2.85 (wall-street-hours-per-ebola-cost-unit)

      Yeah. A whole whopping 2 hours and 51 minutes of it.

      Wall Street needs to take a long, unpaid lunch, basically. That will provide a cure for Ebola. We'll even let them brag about it.

    2. Re:So 1 x F35 = 60 million x vaccinations? by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You mean the money that is propping up your asset bubble? Do that and we will have yet another stock market crash. It's way past time when the bankers and dealers of wall street etc. should be dragged out into the street and shot. Why wasn't this done the first time round? Why were the regulations that were put into place after the first great depression to stop this exact same thing from happening removed, so that it all happened again? Why have the regulations not been put back into place and the guilty punished? The stock market is a fvck up, I am not saying we should return to a barter type system, but why the fvck can you sell sh!t you don't actually own? Why can you bundle up a bunch of debt and then resell it? Why would anyone buy that anyway? The traders all know that it's a house of cards, but they are making money hand over fist and don't give a fvck. Moving their money out of equities and into bonds so when the next bubble pops they can still drive around in their luxury cars and sleep in mansions while the rest of the world starves and sleeps in tents. A lot of blame was placed on Joe Public because he took a loan he could not afford to repay. Why was he given the loan in the first place? Where I live we were (mostly) protected from the first crash because of a consumer protection act that was (mostly) followed by the major banks. Lately however I have noticed that it's not being enforced and not being followed. I can walk into any bank, ask for a personal loan and get it at ridiculous interest rates, no questions asked. I am talking 35+ interest rates, higher than a fvcking credit card. They don't even ask for an expenditure list. All they want to know is if your full take home salary will cover the payment, if it can, you have the loan. If you default they garnish your salary for the payment amount. Then you're are really up shiit street. But you can go back to the bank and ask for ANOTHER loan, which they will give to you, even though you have bad debt (with them) and they are already garnishing your salary. The average man in the street is an idiot, if you give him a length of rope he will hang himself. Why are the people who are handing out lengths of rope not being punished? In most countries I cannot commit euthanasia, but I can give you a loan which will make you jump off a bridge.

      --
      There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
  2. Re:Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Which isn't surprising. If someone can think of alternative which delivers a better result, then I'm all ears.

    I'll give it a try. So many people are executed every year in various countries (even the US). Why not allocate them for research purposes? Instead of electrocuting someone, give him Ebola and try to cure him. You could even give them the option: Do you want a lethal ejection with 100% mortality or Ebola with treatment with projected 30% mortality?

  3. Re:Money, money, money... by tlambert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems that this all about the financial bottom line. I understand things cost money, but it would nice if there was, for once, more concern about human lives.

    Actually, it's not.

    Glaxo Smith Klein has said that even if they relax the bio safety level 2 requirements for filling the vaccine vials, after a certain (short) point, they will be converting their production of other vaccines from such diseases as rotavirus, measles, mumps, and rubella.

    At that point, we are talking about trading American lives to benefit Liberian lives.

    Note that the NewLink vaccine donated by Canada has demonstrated Ebola-like symptoms in many of the people who've been inoculated in Phase I trials, so it's entirely possible Canada Health has been giving those people either the virus or a weakened strain of the virus, and is actually infecting people. Apart from that, they also have the fill rate problem that GSK was complaining about, which would short-sheet supplies of other vaccines.