NFT: Serum for African Ebola Patients ready in weeks.

will the production of serum be limited by the finite (5000?) number of survivors who can only contribute a certain amount of blood?

Since the serum is only used in patients with an active disease, I would guess that they could make enough of it to give to virtually all cases. The problem in parts of West Africa, I think, is delivering it where it's needed.

blood cells, survivors can give multiple transfusions.

It's likely there is a bottleneck in the production (since the number of survivors they can adequately draw blood from is limited), but with a 21 day window for symptoms to appear, the bottleneck is much less of an issue.

Symptoms of the disease. Really use all her blood.

That people can donate plasma twice a week unlike typical blood donations. The machines can separate the plasma and put the rest of the blood back in the patient.

In comment 11934280 Zebra3 said:

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Symptoms of the disease. Really use all her blood.

You mean the trip that was cleared by the CDC?

that was more than a little mean-spirited.

And contagious at the time of her flight. CDC or not at that stage being a medical professional you have to consider the health of others. What she did was endanger others knowing she was sick. No excuse for anyone to do that.

batch was developed from the doctor who survived back in April.

In comment 11934592 Zebra3 said:

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And contagious at the time of her flight. CDC or not at that stage being a medical professional you have to consider the health of others. What she did was endanger others knowing she was sick. No excuse for anyone to do that.

Yet, wishing death is a little rough?

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health says the NIH has been working on a vaccine since 2001. Without the budget cuts there would have been a very good chance the vaccine would have completed human trials by now. Since we did have the budget cuts we are not that close to having a vaccine. In the mean time the NIH talking money for influenza and redirecting it towards Ebola.

In the meantime, serums can be very helpful.

If they can produce enough, and over time I think they can, then I imagine they could give the serum to everyone in the contact circle for a given patient, and thereby probably reduce the number of contacts that turn into new cases, while also reducing the length, magnitude, intensity and morbidity of new cases. A strong, effective serum also would vastly reduce the risk from working in an area with a high concentration of cases.

Even without a vaccine, an effective serum can be a game-changer.

In comment 11935184 Big Blue Fan 74 said:

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Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health says the NIH has been working on a vaccine since 2001. Without the budget cuts there would have been a very good chance the vaccine would have completed human trials by now. Since we did have the budget cuts we are not that close to having a vaccine. In the mean time the NIH talking money for influenza and redirecting it towards Ebola.

Sorry to see someone of Francis' standing and intellect make an overtly political and non-scientific statement.

I've seen a lot of people pointing to budget cuts and...stupidly, sequester...as being the reason Ebola is the problem it is. Patently false and ridiculous.

Sequester caused no problems and the budget declines have been ongoing for more than a decade. AFAIK, no specific programs have been cut; rather, there has been an across the board difficulty in getting research funded. Linking it to any specific disease is wrong, IMO.

The pace of research in this country is really being hurt. That's a fact. Good research is not getting funded and there certainly has been a squeeze on budgets of ongoing research which may have slowed the pace. If Collins' point is that within that morass, the progress of Ebola research or vaccine development was impacted, well then okay. But there is a ton of speculation in his statement.

However, if you forget about his political interjection and focus on a pitch for increasing NIH funding in general, then that's a very good and necessary thing. My editorial comment is that it won't do much to benefit us going forward, however, unless NIH changes it's philosophy to restore an emphasis on basic research as opposed to its more recent distraction of forcing multi-disciplinary science at the expense of good science and it's short-sightedness in only funding translational research at the expense of acquiring fundamental knowledge.

away from insurance companies and towards people who actually provide healthcare.

Just cancel your policies and pay the providers directly.

there might be a "tax" for that.

A few years ago, despite both my wife and I being covered by insurance, we had an issue following an ER visit. My wife cut her hand pretty badly, we took her to the ER, she got it stitched up.

Both insurance companies pointed towards the other, neither wanted to pay (thanks to the hospital for filing the claim with her name spelled wrong at first), and I was getting calls from a collection agency.

The cost for the stitches? $1800. They knew I had insurance, but they weren't getting paid, and they wanted their money.

They suggested that I pay them and try to collect from the insurance. That's what I did, but I refused to pay $1800 and contested the bill. Ultimately, I still overpaid - but the actual amount after telling them they'd receive payment in full, on the spot - $500. Took me over 2 years to get it back from the insurance company.

Two lessons learned there - one, never have two insurance companies cover the same loss. Two, our healthcare system is full of crooks, each one pointing the finger to the other and saying 'hey, it's not my fault, it's those guys!'.

I had surgery. My insurance at the time was BC/BS/Major Medical. I'm not sure what the deal is with that company and how the parts work but I guess that one component covers one thing 9or up to a certain amount) and then the other component takes over for the rest...or whatever. Anyway, they must have had a paperwork argument because they kept rejecting claims from the surgeon, saying it was the other's purview. SO about a year later, I get a check from the insurance company for something like a thousand dollars as reimbursement. It took a while to figure out what it was for, but I guess it was for me to pay the doc. SO I called the doc's office and they told me that they didn't want the money because they had gotten the run around for so long that they had just written off the bill as a loss.

the reason we don't have an ebola vaccine is because of fuckwit government. I need to buy one reagent which is a pretty routine item and costs about $200. It's taken me two days to get three quotes (2 of which I used people because I knew I wasn't going to buy from them in the first place), write a justification for why I needed the item, write a justification for why I didn't buy it from a company that was owned by a disabled person, a blind person, a minority person, a woman, or a Cuomo campaign donor, another page to justify why I didn't buy it from the contract vendor (even though the item is not on contract) and in the order of contract vendors listed on their "approved" vendor list. Figure out and estimate how long the ordered item would last and why I actually needed it in the first place.

This was a lab reagent, but the procedure is exactly the same if I wanted to buy a pen.

I look at the CDC and ebola or even the VA and I'm sure it's not individual malice or corruption that's responsible for fuckups or just inaction...it's merely business as usual for government.

rates here, lifestyle choices, a better median doctor, the AMA, medicine still being labor-intensive, and the lack of universal insurance coverage.

Doctors are more and more willing to shop rates if it's known beforehand (doesn't help in most cases), and there are some services that now offer, essentially, a Thumbtack style auction for doctor's services.

In comment 11935318 Pork and Beans said:

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away from insurance companies and towards people who actually provide healthcare.

Amen!

"away from insurance companies and towards people who actually provide healthcare."

with obamacare - insurance companies are now mandated to spend 80% on healthcare

this is why some customers have gotten rebate checks the past couple of years because insurance companies did not reach 80%