Top ebola researcher says enough panicked Americans could create financial incentive for Big Pharma to back ebola cures

[Emily]

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa...of_dollars.php

Texas Researcher Might Have Some Treatments for Ebola, Needs Money
By Amy Silverstein Thu., Aug. 7 2014 at 9:28 AM
52 Comments
Categories: Drugs

Ever since a doctor from Fort Worth became one of two Americans recently infected with the Ebola virus on a mercy trip in Liberia, the Western public has developed a renewed interest in the rare disease, often described as incurable.

For researchers like University of Texas virologist Dr. Thomas Geisbert, this means they're more likely to finally get all that money they need to continue studying Ebola, which might just be a few human tests and millions of dollars away from a cure, after all. "We have developed treatments that can completely protect monkeys against Ebola if we give it different times after exposure," Geisbert says.

...
"It really, in my opinion, is going to take government support or some kind of a philanthropist, like the Gates foundation or something, to come in and support this," Geisbert says. Either that, or enough panicked Americans to create some financial incentive for Big Pharma.

A tried and true formula if ever there was one.

[Emily]

Re: Top ebola researcher says enough panicked Americans could create financial incentive for Big Pharma to back ebola cures

Right on cue?

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/...-easy-to-make/

Ebola bomb: Possible, but not so easy to make
LiveScience
By Elizabeth Palermo, Staff Writer
Published August 11, 2014
...
But the idea that Ebola could be used as a biological weapon should be viewed with heavy skepticism, according to bioterrorism experts. Although deadly, Ebola is notoriously unstable when removed from a human or animal host, making weaponization of the virus unlikely, two experts told Live Science.

That's not the view posited by Peter Walsh, a biological anthropologist at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. The world should be taking the threat of an Ebola bomb very seriously, Walsh said in a recent interview with the British tabloid The Sun. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]

Walsh warned that terrorists could "harness the virus as a powder," load it into a bomb, and then explode the bomb in a highly populated area, CBS Atlanta reports.

"It could cause a large number of horrific deaths," Walsh told The Sun.

But the idea of Ebola being harvested for use in a "dirty bomb" sounds more like science fiction than a real possibility to bioterrorism experts.

Dr. Robert Leggiadro, a physician in New York with a background in infectious disease and bioterrorism, told Live Science that although Ebola is listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a possible bioterrorism agent, that doesnt necessarily mean the virus could be used in a bomb.

"The thing about Ebola is that it's not easy to work with," Leggiadro said. "It would be difficult to weaponize."

And Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, COO of SecureBio, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security firm in the United Kingdom, said that claims like Walsh's are an example of fear-mongering.

"The chance of the Zaire strain of Ebola being made into a biological weapon is less than nil," de Bretton-Gordon said, referring to the strain of Ebola that is causing the current outbreak in West Africa. "It's just not going to happen."...

Excellent reporting in that article.

http://www.bioanth.cam.ac.uk/s_pwalsh.html

So how did this primate ecologist get so frightened by a far-fetched construct about ebola weapons that he was motivated to do a media tour promoting his fears?

http://whogivesamonkeys.com/2011/03/...rt-next-month/

The vaccine that Walsh is planning to use is being developed by Integrated BioTherapeutics Incorporated, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just outside of DC together with the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). The company says it hopes to develop a product to also protect people against bio-chemical warfare. Walsh says the company is prepared to donate the vaccine for free for testing.

Nothing is free in this world - and Dr. Walsh is also at odds with some other prominent conservationists over his use of lab primates to test an Ebola vaccine he thinks will benefit primates in the "wilds" of eco-tourism reserves.

https://www.facebook.com/janegoodall...52492948897171

It is easy to see why conservationists concerned with individual animal welfare would raise a flag about the ethical conflicts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100101357.html

Ebola's Dogged Enemies By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 2, 2005

By Day 3, Tom Geisbert knew the monkeys were going to die.

He could see it in their faces as he entered the monkey room in Suite AA-4, wearing the china-blue plastic spacesuit that serves as a uniform for the scientists of Fort Detrick's U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases when they are working with the world's most vicious viruses.

Healthy monkeys in the Biosafety Level 4 lab would often react to his suit by jumping, screeching and beating on their cages. But these monkeys glared sullenly at Geisbert with bloodshot eyes and expressionless faces.

It was Oct. 25, 1999...

ETA:
Fearmongering articles which only quote Dr. Walsh's 'science fiction' without the context of quotes from other bioterrorism experts have been appearing in not just tabloids, but in mainstream media:

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/08/04/disease-expert-warns-terrorists-could-make-dirty-bomb-containing-ebola/

This appears to be the kind of propaganda explored here:

Inexperienced bloggers routinely exploited to disseminate Pentagon propaganda

So it is not just bloggers who are susceptible to misinformation, but the source in this case could be corporate and not directly from the Pentagon.