How concerned should we be about controversial Ebola treatments?
With thousands of people affected by Ebola in Africa and the virus rapidly spreading, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a public health emergency,…
Should controversial Ebola treatment be given to more patients? (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
With thousands of people affected by Ebola in Africa and the virus rapidly spreading, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a public health emergency, asking nations from around the world to donate time, money and resources to help prevent further spread of the deadly disease.
Relief may potentially be found in experimental and controversial Ebola treatments?treatments that have yet to pass the routine clinical trials regarding safety and efficacy, and as the death toll climbs, experts are less and less concerned about the repercussions of using such medications.
SEE ALSO: 5 overlooked reasons behind West Africa’s Ebola outbreak
One such treatment is that which supposedly saved the lives of two U.S. citizens who contracted Ebola in West Africa: ZMapp. ZMapp has been used in animal studies but never in humans, but because it was administered to two infected individuals who then survived Ebola, doctors and scientists feel it may be key to saving hundreds–if not thousands- of other individuals.
This undated file image made available by the CDC shows the Ebola Virus. As a deadly Ebola outbreak continues in West Africa, health officials are working to calm fears that the virus easily spreads, while encouraging those with symptoms to get medical care. (AP Photo/CDC, File)
“In the particular circumstances of this outbreak, and provided certain conditions are met, the panel reached consensus that it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as-yet-unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention,” WHO said in a statement on August 2th, 2014.
” Over the past decade, research efforts have been invested into developing drugs and vaccines for Ebola virus disease. Some of these have shown promising results in the laboratory, but they have not yet been evaluated for safety and efficacy in human beings.
The large number of people affected by the 2014 west Africa outbreak, and the high case-fatality rate, have prompted calls to use investigational medical interventions to try to save the lives of patients and to curb the epidemic.”
But what is the cost of using controversial Ebola treatments? Even though the benefit may currently outweigh the risk, why is it that new drugs must undergo such rigorous testing when they seem to be sensibly safe during preliminary testing?
The dangers of controversial Ebola treatments
The history of medicine and controversy is a long one, and it is important to understand humans were at one time very unethical in how we advanced our medical knowledge. In addition to performing experiments on other people without their knowledge, at one time clinical trials were far more simplistic and required less time for mass-market approval.
Such is the instance with the medication thalidomide, a drug that was marketed as a mild sleeping aid safe for pregnant women. According to the Science Museum, laboratory tests on rodents indicated it was practically impossible to achieve an overdose of the drug, and therefore researchers assumed it was safe for pregnant women despite the fact they never actually tested that theory.
A decade after it’s release, investigations into thalidomide showed its use had resulted in birth defects in thousands of infants.
And though thalidomide is the poster child of poor laboratory research involving a medication, hundreds of other medications have made it onto the market with disastrous side-effects the medical community never took into account.
Such is the risk patients and doctors are taking when they administer controversial Ebola treatments. Though the drug may save an individual’s life initially, there is no data indicating what it may do to that person a few years down the road.
SEE ALSO: Spanish priest with Ebola dies
“When you see public health emergencies our first humanitarian response is to think, ‘Well, if somebody’s dying, and it’s hopeless and they consent, why would we not want to give them every possible hope’” by using an experimental drug? said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, to Live Science. “I do think there has to be at least minimal safety testing before we administer experimental drugs to any patients.”
WHO is not taking the risk of controversial Ebola treatments lightly. The organization and a panel of experts is reviewing the available information on each potential Ebola medication, and only with the organization’s approval will such treatments be administered on a larger scale. Currently, Ebola virus can be deadly in up to 90 percent of cases, one of the primary reasons experts are giving experimental medications a chance to save lives.
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