# Why is the new experimental Ebola treatment "Top Secret?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789 "2014-08-04T14:35:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Red\_Stilettos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/21 "2014-08-06T11:36:44Z")
DOD funding is very common if you are working on a bug that could affect the US military. The military is concerned that they could one day face a military threat in an area with Ebola. For that reason, they are very interested in a treatment. Ebola amid war would be truly devastating. There is no cloak and dagger here. Mapp is working with USAMRIID because they are are of the only groups capable of conducting animal experiments with Ebola. If you want to test an Ebola treatment, you pretty much have to collaborate with USAMRIID. Again, there’s nothing suspicious about this group, though I’m sure that will do little to stop all of the conspiracy theorists. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/22 "2014-08-06T14:47:20Z")
“AS the second US Ebola patient arrived in Atlanta yesterday, health authorities in Liberia raised questions about how the woman and an American doctor were given an experimental US treatment unavailable to the hundreds of Africans sickened by the disease…” [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/african-authorities-query-why-ebola-treatment-only-given-to-americans/story-fnay3ubk-1227015784800](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/african-authorities-query-why-ebola-treatment-only-given-to-americans/story-fnay3ubk-1227015784800) They don’t understand the standard protocol for drug development where it takes many, many years from discovery to general availability… ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/23 "2014-08-06T14:54:22Z")
Journalistic license with hyperbole. “Made you click!” There are practical reasons for holding new therapies close to the chest on the part of both the developer (trade protection until commercial production is practical) and health authorities (putative “ethical” considerations along with being careful not to generate too much hoopla for a treatment which may fail, or worse–be highly successful but not available to the masses). To be fair, it’s much easier to give a totally experimental and untested treatment to a highly trained scientist than to an unschooled polloi because the consent issue is more easily addressed. But mostly, hyperbole like “Top Secret” in this instance is in the same genre as this one old secret trick for curing baldness invented by a single Mom in Timbuktu that enrages doctors everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/24 "2014-08-06T14:58:59Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > … as this one old secret trick for curing baldness invented by a single Mom in Timbuktu that enrages doctors everywhere. I’ll give you money to tell me more!! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/25 "2014-08-06T15:48:53Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > “AS the second US Ebola patient arrived in Atlanta yesterday, health authorities in Liberia raised questions about how the woman and an American doctor were given an experimental US treatment unavailable to the hundreds of Africans sickened by the disease…” > > [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/african-authorities-query-why-ebola-treatment-only-given-to-americans/story-fnay3ubk-1227015784800](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/african-authorities-query-why-ebola-treatment-only-given-to-americans/story-fnay3ubk-1227015784800) > > They don’t understand the standard protocol for drug development where it takes many, many years from discovery to general availability… Yup. And how you aren’t legally and ethically allowed to just hand that stuff out to everyone. The amount of bureaucracy involved to give it to just two people in pre-human-testing stages is mind-blowing (I’ve made a similar application to the FDA for a much less serious case, and that was when it had already progressed to phase II human testing). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/26 "2014-08-06T15:53:07Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I’ll give you money to tell me more!! It’s decapitation. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/27 "2014-08-06T15:53:34Z")
> [@Red\_Stilettos](#): > > DOD funding is very common if you are working on a bug that could affect the US military. The military is concerned that they could one day face a military threat in an area with Ebola. For that reason, they are very interested in a treatment. Ebola amid war would be truly devastating. There is no cloak and dagger here. Plus the DOD funds all kinds of stuff, not just directly military-related items. I get grant announcements from the DOD at least once a month, for funding opportunities for research related to stuff like PTSD, breast cancer, rehabilitative medicine, lung cancer, Gulf War illness, multiple sclerosis, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/28 "2014-10-03T03:22:46Z")
> [@Red\_Stilettos](#): > > There are protocols for production of human monoclonals. They don’t require biopsies, just reasonable volumes of fresh whole blood. I don’t know of anyone doing this for Ebola, but if be surprised if it isn’t happening in a lab somewhere. Perhaps that’s what [this Thai hospital](http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Thai-researchers-breakthrough-30244670.html) has done? > [@](#): > > **Mahidol Faculty at Siriraj patents antibody for ebola haemorrhagic fever** > > A THAI medical school has achieved a breakthrough in the treatment of the deadly Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever (EHF), with the potential for commercial distribution within one year from now and boosting the world’s hope of combating the deadly disease that has already claimed thousands of lives in Africa this year. > > At a press conference, Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital yesterday announced that this breakthrough was the therapeutic antibody for EHF. They call it a “therapeutic antibody” and it looks like no _in vivo_ trials have started but they claim it could be ready within a year! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789/29 "2014-10-03T03:29:20Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > Perhaps that’s what [this Thai hospital](http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Thai-researchers-breakthrough-30244670.html) has done? > > They call it a “therapeutic antibody” and it looks like no _in vivo_ trials have started but they claim it could be ready within a year! I’m extremely wary of any claims out of Thailand. They’re always announcing this or that cure, then it doesn’t pan out and quietly disappears. I even recall a cure for Aids here back in the 1980s! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-new-experimental-ebola-treatment-top-secret/694789.md?page=1)