I just got informed that there have been Human trials with Ebola infections, can this be real?
According to the story this trials have been conducted in Africa.
Full story here:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40028.htm
"Detailed Description:
Approximately 28 male and female healthy adult subjects, 18 to 50 years of age at the time of dosing, will participate in this study. The SAD phase of the study is planned to have up to 4 cohorts with 4 subjects (3 receiving TKM-100802 and 1 receiving saline) in each cohort. Additional cohorts may be enrolled in the SAD phase if a MTD is not established after the initial 4 cohorts. In the MAD phase, a dose escalation scheme will be proposed following review of the findings from cohorts 1 to 4 of the SAD phase. The MAD phase is expected to have at least 3 cohorts with 4 subjects (3 receiving TKM-100802 and 1 receiving saline) in each cohort.
They’re testing a drug that is supposed to prevent replication of the Ebola virus. They test on healthy individuals to ensure that the drug doesn’t have unexpected side effects unrelated to Ebola. There is no indication that anyone plans to expose the healthy test subjects to Ebola.
Here’s a brief layman’s writeup. As SpoilerVirgin says, at this point it’s testing for adverse reactions: “whether the vaccine is safe and [to] see whether it prompts an immune response necessary to protect against Ebola.”
The next phase would be efficacy trials in the field with health care workers. Again, they wouldn’t intentionally expose anyone, but health care workers are being exposed anyway. Researchers can compare expected or control-group rates of infection to rates in those receiving the vaccine.
Yeah, so clinicaltrials.gov is a legit source (it should be noted that in the table there, “Condition” is not what they’re being given in the study, ie. “Ebola virus infection”, it is the condition for which the intervention, ie. the vaccine drug, is being studied for).
As for the other source; well, first he misrepresents the “official” source, calling it “official confirmation of Dr. Boyle and Dr. Broderick’s reports that the US government has conducted ebola experiments.” That’s a little dishonest, and then it veers into all kinds of nonsense completely unsupported by the documentation on the experiment – “It appears that the test consists of giving an ebola vaccine and then exposing the unaware person to ebola, apparently an engineered version for bio-warfare.” Huh? Where did that come from? So I looked up this Professor Boyle at U of I. He exists. He’s a lawyer. He did draft a bill on biological weapons back in the day, but one may note that laws are written by lawyers every day who aren’t necessarily subject experts in the field. So this Paul Craig Roberts, though, likes to use him as an “authoritative” source on such matters (and has several times, even going so far in the article you linked as calling him one of “Two Scientists…” who say Ebola originated in a biowarfare lab. Sorry, a lawyer (even with a degree in “political science”) isn’t really most people’s idea of a “scientist” with respect to bio-engineering laboratories and whatnot, and using that term for him is pretty disingenuous, in my opinion.
All these types of things, plus the usual typos and grammatical errors (really, a Biological Warfare Expert Scientist would repeatedly and consistently refer to the CDC as the Center for Disease Control?) and his other writings have a consistent general focus on everything being a government conspiracy…well, let’s just what you have there is not usually considered a “reliable source.”
When the first words that jump out from the page are “Is The US Government The Master Criminal Of Our Time?” and “Ebola Originated In US Bio-warfare Lab,” you kind of figure it might not be a reputable, peer-reviewed source.
According to the clinicaltrials.gov link you posted, the study was to take place in San Antonio, Texas.
Ebola was discovered in the 1970s, and there have been periodic outbreaks for forty years. (2014 has been the by far the biggest outbreak, but that’s mainly because it is the first time the disease has hit urban Africa. Researchers have been anticipating/dreading this for a number of years.)
Ebola has been known to science since 1976 (wikipedia) and even the current West African Outbreak dates to December 2013, before the start of this trial (wikipedia). Do you think they should have waited?
Yes, the first outbreaks were in December last year but by March 2014 there were only very few cases reported, “It began as a handful of cases in Guinea in March but quickly spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia.”.
So, why should the U.S. Department of Defense be interested to put that much money into research for a vaccine? “There are other experimental drugs out there.Tekmira, a Vancouver-based company that has a $140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop an [anti]Ebola drug, began Phase 1 trials with its drug in January. But the FDA recently halted the trial, asking for more information.”
And in March, the U.S. National Institute of Health awarded a five-year, $28 million grant to establish a collaboration between researchers from 15 institutions who were working to fight Ebola.
“A whole menu of antibodies have been identified as potentially therapeutic, and researchers are eager to figure out which combinations are most effective and why,” a news release about the grant said.
Makes one wonder why we are suddenly so concerned about Africa, where we tended to look the other way in the past whenever there were people dying by the thousands…
About the laboratories I asked, I am still searching for reliable information, I am confident that I will find something, it’s hard to believe that they would invent something like that…
Here I found some from back in 2011.
"Lugar and a delegation of U.S. defense officials traveled last fall to Uganda and Kenya to assess security at biological research facilities that stored such deadly agents as Ebola and anthrax. While biodefense laboratories in the United States that work with similarly dangerous pathogens have advanced security measures in place, defenses at the African research institutes were more likely to consist of barbed wire, according to the magazine.
At a laboratory in Uganda’s capital, the U.S. delegation observed significant security vulnerabilities including a failure to track which individuals had access to virus materials.
“Smaller regional facilities that collect samples directly from patients often have little or no security, unsecured and unlocked pathogen collections and open perimeters,” a Defense Department spokesman said.
“The work that has been performed at these labs is invaluable, and the world is better off for it,” Lugar said. “Without this research we would be even further behind the curve on potential outbreaks and new strains of deadly diseases like Ebola and anthrax.”
Still, biological pathogens can be weaponized “more simply than any dealing with chemical or nuclear devices,” the Indiana senator said. “Just one of the deadly viruses I witnessed could, if in the wrong hands, cause death and economic chaos.” Coordinated terrorist strikes in Uganda in 2010 “have brought this threat into sharper focus.” he added.
Since the Ebola virus has long been know for outbreaks for four decades, and constantly re-emerging in the Central Africa, why would the public health authorities not engage in the research and preparation?
I do not think you are searching for the reliable information, I think you have a conclusion based on conspiracy thinking which you seek to support.
Wait, so you find an unrelated news story about laboratory security Uganda and you think it’s connected to the clinical trial in the OP? How is it connected?
It really does look like you’re not asking questions, but pushing conspiracy theories.
The first cases of the current epidemic were in December, but the first outbreaks were in the 1970s. Every public health researcher in the area knew that it was only a matter of time before Ebola spread to a major African urban area and from there it could spread to the world in a 1918-style pandemic. The U.S. Dept of Defense and other agencies have a vested interest in preventing a 1918-style pandemic.
Moreover, one of your own links notes that the Soviets were researching weaponizing African-origin disease agents thirty years ago. It’s not exactly impossible that somebody else would take up that mantle (China, ISIL/Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, etc.). Waiting until a pandemic is in progress is a little late to start putting money into research.
Read your own citations. The clinical trial to which you linked was sponsored by Tekmira, and has been halted, AS IS CLEARLY SHOWN ON THE PAGE TO WHICH YOU LINKED.
If nothing else, we tend to be concerned when those people are dying of an unknown disease that might spread to the rest of the world.
[Also, nothing in the 2011 article on biological research facilities in Africa says or implies that those are facilities owned or operated or controlled by the United States. You do realize African government have facilities and have a vested interest in studying diseases close to home, right?]
The others are correct–you are searching for evidence of a conspiracy, not answers to your questions.
Thanks again for your strong assurance that there is nothing be be feared from the almighty USA and it’s allies, all this conspiracy talks got me worried for a while, let’s meet here again when it’s all over and laugh about our fears…
The USG funds all kinds of biodefence research. We sit, right now, on a stash of anthrax accine that servces half o the country. We have a strong interest in anything that can be be weaponized, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
We’ve also learned over time that the health of other countries is related to our own. SARS showed us just how economically devastating an outbreak on the other side of the world can be. And the last decade or so has taught us that failed states are a breeding ground for all kinds of things that come back to bite us. So we have a general interest in health and public order, even in countries that may not seem immediately important.
I do not know what “all powerful” Americans or allies of Americans have to do with the Ebola in reality. The answers to your ‘questions’ have been clear that you are presenting banal health researching on Ebola aspects as something sinister and mysterious, and it was and is not.