Ebola Outbreak

[FZR1KG]

Family-friends-country-state-allies-world-enemies.

That's the order of priorities in most situations.
It changes in dramatic circumstances that threaten an entire group from the above.

Expecting that to be different is a recipe for disaster, not expecting disaster is for the naive.
No offense to TSC or GJ here but seriously?

[SciFiFisher]

IMO you don't have to be able to name a better system to point out brokenness in the current one.

Hope that makes sense.

I agree. It's perfectly ok for TSC to point out that the current system is broken. I was just pointing out that as a winner of the birth place lottery I am all for keeping the current system until a better one comes along.

[FZR1KG]

IMO you don't have to be able to name a better system to point out brokenness in the current one.

Hope that makes sense.

I agree. It's perfectly ok for TSC to point out that the current system is broken. I was just pointing out that as a winner of the birth place lottery I am all for keeping the current system until a better one comes along.

It's not just birthplace. I know some would like us to believe that but that is so simplistic it borders on retarded.
A citizen of a country is a person that has had time and money invested into them by the other citizens of that same country.
This particular guy is a doctor and a specialist, that's a lot of investment in a person.
To give it up based on: if we bring him in, we have to bring everyone from Africa as well or its privilege mentality, is a very naive and simplistic view of the world.

I have friends that I would do just about anything for. Lets try the same thinking as what is being proposed here.
I meet a stranger and he asks, "I borrow $5000 because I'm desperate?".
Now, if it was a friend that was desperate I'd either loan it if I had it or get a loan and give it to them if I could.
How far should I go for someone I have never met?
Well fuck, I guess my friend is a privileged bastard because I won't give a stranger $5000 based on the fact that I would do the same for a friend.

No, reality is this: we value certain people more than others and what we are willing to do for them does not equate to some global will to do the same for everyone.
If we lived any other way then there is no value on family, friendship or citizenship.

Yes, we're all members of this world. That doesn't mean I treat everyone like my family or closest friends.
Nor does it mean a country has to treat non citizens the same as citizens, for those exact same reasons.

Where I draw a distinction is when countries have reciprocating agreements and one fails to abide with the agreement.
The US is notorious for that.
But in this case, go USA.

[FZR1KG]

When we finally have a true world wide system that is based entirely on need and all world wide citizens being equally truly equally then we can agree that it should not be that way.

Not sure but I think this is is/ought fallacy.

GJ, it's you and TSC that are part of the fallacy.
You are seeing things as they are and telling us what they ought to be...

[The Supreme Canuck]

And you're not telling us how things should be?

Edit: The way the Is-Ought Problem works is to say "X is the way things are, therefore X is the way things should be." That doesn't necessarily follow. I don't see either you (FZ) or us (GJ and I) falling prey to that - we're all providing reasons why we think what we think. So there's no fallacy there. Saying "You're telling us how thing should be, and are therefore committing a fallacy" is incorrect. Also, the Is-Ought Problem isn't strictly a fallacy; it's a problem. It has to do with how we can derive ethics from metaphysics. So I don't think it's terribly applicable, here.

(Yes, I took too much philosophy. Sue me. )

[FZR1KG]

And you're not telling us how things should be?

Edit: The way the Is-Ought Problem works is to say "X is the way things are, therefore X is the way things should be." That doesn't necessarily follow. I don't see either you (FZ) or us (GJ and I) falling prey to that - we're all providing reasons why we think what we think. So there's no fallacy there. Saying "You're telling us how thing should be, and are therefore committing a fallacy" is incorrect. Also, the Is-Ought Problem isn't strictly a fallacy; it's a problem. It has to do with how we can derive ethics from metaphysics. So I don't think it's terribly applicable, here.

(Yes, I took too much philosophy. Sue me. )

But I ought to be right.

[SciFiFisher]

You all would be right in a perfect world. But, since there is only one right answer (I learned that from Mrs Sheffield my Kindergarten teacher) then I am right and you are all wrong.

[FZR1KG]

You confuse yourself with me.

[Swift]

I hope Donald Trump gets some treatable disease and dies because people decide it isn't worth the risk to treat assholes.

Honestly, my problem is that it seems terribly unfair that US aid workers get to be flown out of Africa and to Atlanta to receive first-world care, while hundreds of Africans don't. That's not me saying that these Americans shouldn't receive that care, just that the overall situation is absolutely terrible.

The list of terrible things in the world is overwhelming. If you focus on them you'll go crazy.

These two people were over there helping to bring medical care to the very people you are feeling terrible about. I think they are more than deserving to be brought home.

I really don't understand why people are so bent about bringing these people home for medical treatment. I'd like to ask everyone of them who says not to bring them home if they'd feel the same if it was their son and their daughter who were the patients.

[Cyborg Girl]

I really don't understand why people are so bent about bringing these people home for medical treatment. I'd like to ask everyone of them who says not to bring them home if they'd feel the same if it was their son and their daughter who were the patients.

This is actually my primary beef with systems of privilege: if they're not your son or daughter, they're someone else's. I realize that in practice you can't save everyone; but yeah, at risk of sounding cliche, every life is priceless.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Even Donald Trump's?

[FZR1KG]

I really don't understand why people are so bent about bringing these people home for medical treatment. I'd like to ask everyone of them who says not to bring them home if they'd feel the same if it was their son and their daughter who were the patients.

This is actually my primary beef with systems of privilege: if they're not your son or daughter, they're someone else's. I realize that in practice you can't save everyone; but yeah, at risk of sounding cliche, every life is priceless.

And the others are home.
What makes you think that the patients or their relatives would want to go to the USA for treatment?
What is happening is that you are placing your value system on them and the two aren't necessarily matched.
e.g. 90% mortality rate regardless of where you are.
Where would you rather be, in your home country with your family, even if they are distant but you can see them or moved to some unknown place without your family when the odds are more likely that you will die anyway.
Also, the move is going to be stressful for the Africans. It's going to be a relief for the Americans.
He is going home to family, the others would be leaving home and family.

To make things more equal you'd need to take them and their relatives and that just isn't possible.

Reality is, things are more equal when each dies at home.
Sometimes it's not about how you get to live but how you get to die. Sad but true.

[Swift]

I really don't understand why people are so bent about bringing these people home for medical treatment. I'd like to ask everyone of them who says not to bring them home if they'd feel the same if it was their son and their daughter who were the patients.

This is actually my primary beef with systems of privilege: if they're not your son or daughter, they're someone else's. I realize that in practice you can't save everyone; but yeah, at risk of sounding cliche, every life is priceless.

I think we are talking about two different, almost unrelated aspects of this story.

You are talking about "systems of privilege" (I absolutely despise that term, I'm not sure why) and the fact that every patient can't receive some level of world class medical care. I don't know why you focus on Ebola for this issue, there are much greater disparities in basic medical care between the first world and the third world that kill a heck of a lot more people than Ebola. Simple things like vaccinations and clean water.

I'm talking about the fear-mongering that the news media is whipping up about these two people being transported back to the US and the people, like Donald Trump, who would rather they die than come home to their families, because the Donald is afraid he might get sick.

[FZR1KG]

Speaking of health care and getting the best of it, I'm sure TSC doesn't want Canada to cover all Americans so they have better health care nor do I want to fly Americans to Australia so they can get better health care there.

It would cripple our economies to try and help a third world health care system the size of the USA's.

[The Supreme Canuck]

I never said I wanted those things. I said it's unfair that Africa has inadequate healthcare systems while we do not.

[FZR1KG]

I never said I wanted those things. I said it's unfair that Africa has inadequate healthcare systems while we do not.

You missed the part about me saying the USA has third world health care and Canada and Australia don't.
My guess my humour might need tweaking.

[Swift]

I never said I wanted those things. I said it's unfair that Africa has inadequate healthcare systems while we do not.

You missed the part about me saying the USA has third world health care and Canada and Australia don't.
My guess my humour might need tweaking.

There are some effective pharmaceuticals for humor adjustment now available, but unless your insurance covers it, they are extremely expensive.

[The Supreme Canuck]

It's not funny if it's true, FZ.

[FZR1KG]

It's not funny if it's true, FZ.

Sure it is.
That's how society has addressed hot topics for ages.
The Kings fool is an example.
Most comedians use, sex, race and sexual preference as the source of their humour.
Politics is another.
How else can we deal with the monumental stupidity other than either laugh it off or shoot the fuckers responsible for being morons.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Oh. Look. Maybe now I have a solution.

Crash program to immediately mass-produce this stuff.

Which, to be fair, they're apparently doing on a small scale. Ramp it up, post-haste, first of all. The WHO wants to spend $100 million? Here's something to spend it on.

Second of all, why was this "serum" only made available when an American became ill? People had been getting sick for months. And why was it made available to the Americans first?

You see why this makes me uneasy, I'm sure.

[FZR1KG]

Not me.
Clinical trials on humans are a big deal.
If this thing made him worse of killed him, would we be sitting here asking, why weren't the Africans tested on it first?

It's a crap shoot if it will work.
Medical technology isn't advanced enough to determine anything for sure and testing unsure drugs gets all manner of ethical attention if the exact process isn't followed.

I'm sure you can see the potential hazzards of using an untested drug on citizen's of another country.
Can't win either way.
You test on 3rd world patients and you get accused of ethical violations and get in deep shit if the results are nasty.
Test on your own citizens you get accused of not wanting to help 3rd world nations if the results are good.
Too bad we can't yet tell how a drug will work before it's used and avoid all this shit.

[The Supreme Canuck]

When the mortality rate is ~90% and when you give the patient the opportunity to refuse, there's no ethical conundrum, as far as I'm concerned. If there were an ethical issue concerning human experimentation, the medical community would be outraged by the use of this "serum" (in quotes since that's just what CNN called it) on two American humans. There is no such outrage. Christ, they're talking about making it more widely available.

Presumably, also, whoever is in charge of this stuff had good reason to think it would help, or they wouldn't have used it. Some trials would have been done by this point - at least enough to know that there would be more harm done by not using it than by using it, given the relative risks of the disease and the drug.

Human experimentation and informed consent are important issues, to be sure. They're just not relevant here.

Edit: Basically, what you're saying supports the position that this "serum" ought not to have been used at all, on anyone. Which isn't actually the position you're trying to support, I don't think.

[Swift]

When the mortality rate is ~90% and when you give the patient the opportunity to refuse, there's no ethical conundrum, as far as I'm concerned.

Just to monkey-wrench a little.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, this strain seems to be about 60% mortality. Does that change the ethics? If you say "no", what is the magic number: 30%, 40%?

How informed can the consent be if the patient is not familiar with modern medicine (I don't know if these people are or not)?

What about some complicated details (this is, I think, how these decisions really come down) - let's say this serum costs $25,000 per person to produce and is believed to drop the mortality rate to about 25%, but that is not yet determined in large scale trials. On the flip-side, standard supportive care (IVs, blood transfusions, respiratory support, etc.) costs $10,000 per person, but the mortality rate is still about 50%, but this is a proven treatment. What say you then?

I'm only giving you (and GJ) a hard time because you seem to have all the answers, ethical and otherwise. I don't, and try hard to not give anyone the impression I might.

[SciFi Chick]

I see that CNN has gone the way of FOX in not bothering to get their facts straight before reporting on a story.

Here is a more accurate summary of what happened. It's not a "secret" serum, and it wasn't created in mice.

I would imagine the hope is to create it with mice, but for now, they have to rely on the antibodies in someone who has survived. Not something that can easily be mass produced.

[FZR1KG]

*edited to add, swift and SFC jumped in before me*

I'm glad you don't see experimenting on people in third world countries so long as they give consent unethical, but, you don't get to decide medical ethics nor do I.
It's also informed consent that is part of the problem. Just look at history to see where medical industries had consent but behaved unethically.
There are far more issues here than either of us can think of and there are protocols to be followed for those reasons.

It's a developmental drug. How much of it do they have in stock?
Treating two American doctors who then die is a lot easier to deal with than 1000 deaths when there should have been far less.

Then there are other issues, how well do we understand virology to test on 1000 people and not have the resources to keep track of them in controlled circumstances.
Are they still contagious after they appear to have recovered?
What we may end up doing is releasing 1000's with a virus they are no longer infected with but they carry.
Or we may end up killing them all when the mortality rate isn't 100%.

No answers to any questions yet, then the solution is simple, don't experiment on many, do it on a few and do it in controlled circumstances so you know what you are dealing with.