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Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#21

Post by [deleted] »

lauraura wrote: post #3
trhway wrote: post #2

why we still test effectiveness on animals when there are several thousands of people who has no downside and only upside for the drug to be tested on them? Ethics? It would be a strange ethics that had worked only until an American needed the cure. Something isn't right that this drug got out of shadow only when there was a need to cure an American. I mean, of course, thanks God, that i have real chance of soon beco…

"And two out of seven people given the drug, have later died from the disease." Sounds like they're already doing precisely that.

[deleted]

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#22

Post by roywiggins »

xtrumanx wrote: post #16
DanBC wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating an ebola patient is complicated. Treating an ebola patient who has a bunch of weird side effects caused by an experimental drug makes a sub-optimal situation much worse.

> ..makes a sub-optimal situation much worse. I guess the OP's point was how much more sub-optimal can the situation get if the alternative to not trying the experimental drug is the death of the patient.

The alternative is a about a 40% chance of survival without the drug. With the drug, maybe it will be higher, but maybe it will be lower. We don't actually know (though this new trial is very encouraging).

A bad drug could also cause suffering beyond what Ebola causes: even if the patient was going to die anyway, it could make their death even more painful.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#23

Post by colanderman »

trhway wrote: post #2

why we still test effectiveness on animals when there are several thousands of people who has no downside and only upside for the drug to be tested on them? Ethics? It would be a strange ethics that had worked only until an American needed the cure. Something isn't right that this drug got out of shadow only when there was a need to cure an American. I mean, of course, thanks God, that i have real chance of soon beco…

Because only humans are made in God's image. Therefore it's ethical to test drugs on enslaved non-human sentients incapable of acknowledging consent.

EDIT: Very curious whether the downvoters (a) don't get the sarcasm, (b) get the sarcasm and are offended that I question their religious tenets, (c) think animal testing is justifiable beyond reproach, (d) disagree that monkeys are sentient, (e) think that monkeys consent to testing, or (f) just don't like how I worded things.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#24

Post by icegreentea »

coldcode wrote: post #11

It's interesting to me that people are working on a cure for Ebola yet no one is deeply interested in working on new antibiotics. Ebola is a scary disease yet rare (across the entire planet) so there doesn't seem to be a lot of monetary reason to invest in it. Antibiotic resistance is far more widespread. I guess I don't always understand how the pharmaceutical industry decides what to look at.

The treatment in question (Zmapp) are heavily funded supported by various DoD entities. Weaponized ebola (along with smallpox) were always something of a bogey-man that received perhaps outsized attention from various sources.

Secondly, if it weren't for this outbreak, all of these treatments and vaccines would likely sit around in clinical trial hell for quite a while.

Cynically speaking, since clinical trials are so risky and expensive, its best if the developers can off-load some of that risk and expense. Picking something like Ebola, surviving on government funding (because its seen as strategic), and waiting for an emergency to allow you to skip a lot of red tape, and get dollops of support, isn't really a terrible choice.

Oh, and antibiotics are hard. For an overview of the current state of antibiotic development, you can take a look here:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-brie...

Note that 43 drugs are in the pipeline.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#25

Post by rch »

state wrote: post #20
rch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DARPA thinks it's a scalable method, at least for producing flu vaccines: "Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP), companies in four states are building facilities where they can quickly produce vaccine-grade proteins grown in the cells of tobacco plants. Once they produce the proteins, the goal is for each company to scale up its process to produce 100 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine per month." http://w…

Right. It certainly seems like a much more scalable way to produce antibodies. It's just getting all the infrastructure in place that's going to be a challenge.

That article was from 2010. I hear this place is pretty impressive:

http://nctm.tamu.edu/facilities.html

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#26

Post by nsxwolf »

state wrote: post #8

I'm surprised that so much of the coverage of ZMapp doesn't include the fact that the drug is produced in tobacco plants. To me, this is the single most interesting and impressive fact. It's also likely the main reason why "the limited supplies will not help the 20,000 people predicted to be infected during the outbreak in West Africa." Scaling production of antibodies grown in plants can't possibly be straightforwar…

It's about time tobacco paid us back in the health department.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#27

Post by richardwigley »

sliverstorm wrote: post #19
coldcode wrote: post #11

It's interesting to me that people are working on a cure for Ebola yet no one is deeply interested in working on new antibiotics. Ebola is a scary disease yet rare (across the entire planet) so there doesn't seem to be a lot of monetary reason to invest in it. Antibiotic resistance is far more widespread. I guess I don't always understand how the pharmaceutical industry decides what to look at.

New antibiotics are in the works all the time. We are currently in an arms race with infections; I recall reading that new antibiotics are expected to last for only 10 years, and future antibiotics are going to last even less time (before resistance develops) Why doesn't it get more press? I don't know for sure, but it is: - Ongoing, which makes for bad news - Kind of depressing, because we are slowly losing the batt…

Yeah, it is depressing in the UK - the usage of antibiotics on colds (i.e. of no value to most people with colds) has increased 40% this century even with a campaign to limit usage.

I've personally spoken to a couple of GPs/Docs and they said after a few hours of people coming in and asking they get tired and give in.

Between that and farms using them like M&Ms (smarties ;-) ) on the cattle it seems like people are taking a precious resource and throwing it on the floor.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28648785

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#28

Post by dnautics »

rch wrote: post #15
state wrote: post #8

I'm surprised that so much of the coverage of ZMapp doesn't include the fact that the drug is produced in tobacco plants. To me, this is the single most interesting and impressive fact. It's also likely the main reason why "the limited supplies will not help the 20,000 people predicted to be infected during the outbreak in West Africa." Scaling production of antibodies grown in plants can't possibly be straightforwar…

DARPA thinks it's a scalable method, at least for producing flu vaccines: "Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP), companies in four states are building facilities where they can quickly produce vaccine-grade proteins grown in the cells of tobacco plants. Once they produce the proteins, the goal is for each company to scale up its process to produce 100 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine per month." http://w…

DARPA is misinformed about a lot of things and has the money to afford being so especially if a few long shots work out.

Tobacco is not scaleable for rapid response because of the amount of time it takes to verify and grow a plant clone. The goal with pandemic flu is to get a rapid response vaccine kit for first responders, then to stage in higher-scaled vaccines. [1]

Ebola is similar. Unfortunately ZMAPP has this technical debt where their testing and validation is tied (understandable from a scientific and legalistic viewpoint but maybe not necessary the best outcome) to production in tobacco. There are better systems now, I'm thinking the new system called 'pichia glycoswitch'.

[1]http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/185/185ra68.short Disclaimer: i used to work for the VI and witnessed the researcher D. Gibson come in after the 'timed experiment', where he had a special fedex truck come in at 3am to pick up the package from his private residence; he joked that his neighbors must have thought he was dealing drugs. Although I generally dislike the scientific product coming out of the VI, this was one I had immense respect for.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#29

Post by mrexroad »

xtrumanx wrote: post #16
DanBC wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating an ebola patient is complicated. Treating an ebola patient who has a bunch of weird side effects caused by an experimental drug makes a sub-optimal situation much worse.

> ..makes a sub-optimal situation much worse. I guess the OP's point was how much more sub-optimal can the situation get if the alternative to not trying the experimental drug is the death of the patient.

if walking dead and zombie movies taught us anything, it's that things can get a whole lot more sub-optimal.

Re: Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials

#30

Post by OldLikeDos »

kqr2 wrote: post #7

In this NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/world/africa/study-says-zm... It mentions that all 3 control group animals died. Does anyone know why the control group is so small compared to the test group of 18?

It looks like the 18 animals were actually sub-divided into at least three test groups. One test group got the drug after 3 days after exposure, one at 4 days and one at 5 days. So the number of animals in each sub-group is closer to the control.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were actually six test groups of three animals each (perhaps divided by both day-of-treatment and something else like drug amount), thus matching the control. But the article doesn't actually imply that.

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