What "type" would that be, exactly? I agree the deciding factor is that they were white Americans. So obviously you must think I'm of some "type" who would be part of some "fallout" if it had killed a non-white non-American.
And you would be 100% wrong.
I'll accept your apology now.
Actually, scratch that, I won't. I don't want an apology from your type.
Look, unless you have some actual proof, speculating that because they were white, that's why they got it is just conspiracy theory wackiness.
The drug company was an American company, perhaps for legal or whatever reasons, they thought it better to test on their own citizens first? And Shivetya has a point - if they had picked some random chump from Africa to use as their guinea pig and things had gone south, I bet there would be a s*itstorm of moral outrage that we'd used those poor foreigners as our test subjects.
As others have pointed out, one of the victims was a doctor, the other some type of nursing staff, who flew over to Africa from the US, of their own volition, to help look after Ebola victims. Have you done something like that recently?
If I was risking my life every day, to try to help Ebola victims, I'd want to think that I'd at least be covered.
I have neither their raw courage or medical skillset, but I tip my hat off to them.
I don't think we just begrudge that an American company was ok to use them as guinea pigs for an experimental drug that had never been tested in humans.
And hey, look, if these people get cured, maybe they'll head back over to Africa again, to continue helping people.
Please stop with the name-calling. We at Hacker News should be better than that.
> Look, unless you have some actual proof, speculating that because they were white, that's why they got it is just conspiracy theory wackiness.
No, it is speculation, but it is not "conspiracy theory wackiness". An extremely plausible theory is that these two received the drug while others did not because they were American. Your own posting suggests that. floody-berry posted three links to other health care professionals who happen to be African, who had died in this outbreak.
> As others have pointed out, one of the victims was a doctor, the other some type of nursing staff, who flew over to Africa from the US, of their own volition, to help look after Ebola victims. Have you done something like that recently? > > If I was risking my life every day, to try to help Ebola victims, I'd want to think that I'd at least be covered.
Indeed. So what about Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan? He was lauded by news services and governments around the world for the enormous difference he had made in the treatment of Ebola in Sierra Leone. I would want someone like him to be covered too.
But he wasn't. Why not? Is it, as you suggest, because the company decided "perhaps for legal or whatever reasons" (your words) that they should only provide the experimental drug for Americans? Because if so, I think that is TERRIBLE -- and I think that the laws (or "whatever reasons") should be changed. Because it is unethical to say that only American lives are important enough to save with an experimental treatment.
As I pointed out, this was a drug from an American pharmaceutical company.
And the trial was overseen by the CDC, which last time I checked, was an American federal body.
So it's perfectly reasonable, whether for legal, jurisdictional, or whatever reasons, that they would pick American citizens as their first guinea pigs.
This has nothing to do with "only saving American lives". You could replace American with any other country, and it would probably be exactly the same.
For example - Bayer, a German drug company, has in tandem with the Bundesinstitut für risikobewertung decided to run a trial on two local volunteer. Would you be just as outraged then?
Yet, you seem to see this as some grand conspiracy to protect American lives...
Further, you seem to have completely overlooked the fact that we have American citizens flying over to Africa, and putting themselves at risk to look after Ebola victims.
I'm not even from America, and I don't really see the huge moral outrage here. The drugs hasn't even hit human clinical trials yet, so I don't see how you can even draw conclusions on who it might or might not be offered to.