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Comment by monsterix | Hacker News Reader

I wonder who were the people that took the decision to not give ZMapp to Dr. Khan. What were their reasons to take the drug away for what seems like treating white patients first while we can come back to Khan later (sorry but there is no better way to put this).

A full enquiry and reportage on that side of story will be helpful I think.

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One issue that I've seen raised before is that there's a bit of a Catch-22 in public perception in Africa. As you point out, withholding the experimental drug has nasty overtones of "saving the cure for the white folks". But there's also a real risk that if they gave the first experimental treatment to Dr. Khan, the narrative would be "using the black folks as guinea pigs". Both of these concerns are based on actual history, so they're not easily dismissed in the region.

I don't know how you balance that. If the treatment is new enough, you really might not know whether it would help or hurt the patient's odds of survival.

They were doctors at MSF:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/world/africa/ebola.html?_r...

There was quite a bit of reportage (both in this article and in the wider news media). For reference:

"If something went wrong with the drug, there was no intensive-care unit in Kailahun. The population of Sierra Leone would be furious if the West was seen to have killed Khan, an African scientist and a national hero, with an experimental drug. But if he wasn’t given the ZMapp, and he died, people might say that the West had withheld a miracle drug from him. “I was making sure my tone of voice stayed neutral,” Kobinger recalled. The debate and the calls went on for three days."

So why not share the names and reasoning the doctors had which perceptibly led to withholding (rather taking it away) from Dr. Khan?

Public perception makes it hard I can understand, but not giving the drug simply to manage public perception is incredibly selfish and stupid no matter how you choose to see or read all the reportage.

> Debates and the call went on for three days?

Lol, sure. Does that even make any sense? Groupthink as a proxy for effort? Seen that before!

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