Ebola vaccine development (or lack thereof)

[Kathleen Richards]

James T. McKinley (mckinley at msupa.pa.msu.edu) wrote:
: Dr. Murphy's reply sounds as if it is mostly a question of money to
: develop a vaccine for Ebola, and that given how few people are killed by 
: Ebola each year, it's not worth it to those who hold the purse strings 
: (the US government I guess), too bad for the folks in Zaire.  I guess the
: same applies to the dengue virus and others closer to home. 

I don't think it is that cut and dried.  There is only so much money
and only so many researchers and labs to go around.  It simply is not
possible to work on everything at once.  It is always heartbreaking to
see the human cost of something like ebola and wonder why there is no
magic bullet to keep us safe, but we have to put it into perspective.
There are diseases out there that *were* running rampant and killing
and maiming many more people than ebola ever has (e.g. smallpox, polio)
that we *have* conquered (at least in their present form).  Researchers
are forced to put their efforts where they can do the most good!  It is
simply a matter of resource allocation with scant resources.  There are
many steps that come way before being able to create a vaccine as well.
Hours and months and years of research on the virus must come first in
most cases (sometimes serendipity plays a hand and you get lucky, more
often not).  This type of research is undoubtedly going on and has been
going on regarding things like ebola, marburg, hanta, etc.  Magic bullets
are the end result of a long and complicated and expensive process and
sometimes the result of that process actually is the knowledge that there
can be *no* magic bullet for a particular disease (at least given our
current level of technology).

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kathleen richards   email: kilty at netcom.com 

   ~Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug!~
                                                  -dire straits