Ebola Nose Spray Vaccine Protects Monkeys 198
First time accepted submitter GeekyKhan writes A new needle-free vaccine has proven to be 100% effective at stopping the transmission of Ebola in monkeys, and it could spell a breakthrough in the battle against the disease. The vaccine is administered through a nasal spray using a common cold virus genetically engineered to carry Ebola DNA. From NBC: "The vaccine uses a common cold virus genetically engineered to carry a tiny piece of Ebola DNA. Sprayed up the nose, it saved all nine monkeys tested for infection. But now the research is dead in the water without funding, Maria Croyle of the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Pharmacy said. 'Now we are at the crossroads, trying to figure out where to get the funding and resources to continue,' Croyle told NBC News."
Where is (Score:5, Funny)
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And the vaccine contains GMOs!
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And the vaccine contains GMOs!
ALSO IT'S A VACCINE!!
I don't trust science, I trust God! Theref<fell dead on the keyboard>
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... <resurrected - haha!>
What I really meant was:
* I don't trust science! I trust God and conspiracy theories on the Internet! The bolder and #ff0000 text and the more apocalyptic video the better!
They for sure are more trustworthy than the peer-reviewed content of scientific journals and work of researchers at universities! .. the Bible and the Quran tell us all we need to know!
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Actual discussion:
Parent "I want #Ebola vaccine for my child"
Doc "There isn't one, but we have #flushot"
Parent "We don't believe in that"
https://twitter.com/AllergyKid... [twitter.com]
Technicalities (Score:4, Insightful)
Saved? I can believe that none of the vaccinated monkeys caught Ebola, but I'd hardly call that 'saving' them. I'd also think calling a vaccine 100% effective is a bit premature with only nine test subjects.
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For a sample size of 9, it's 100% effective.
As with all statistics, the devil is in the details. :-P
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As with all statistics, the devil is in the details. :-P
... and one of the most important details was left out: What is the infection rate in the absence of the vaccine? If it was 100%, and the vaccine prevented it, then it is 100% effective with 0% margin of error. If the infection rate would have been 50%, then it is still effective with (1-1/512) = 99.5% certainty. It is not clear if a control group was used in this study. TFA made it sound like there was not. So the positive result could have been because of some experimental error like dead ebola, tha
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With a 70% death rate?
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So, there are two constraints there, already. Firstly where are you going to get the hundred or two hundred monkeys that would have made for a much better study? It's a stunningly simple question, and that suggests to me that they probably couldn't get more. From anywhere. It's called
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Wow, it's up to 200% effective!?!?!?!?!
That's the level of accuracy we are dealing with here folks.
Re:Technicalities (Score:5, Insightful)
If the infection rate prior to being immunized was 100%, I'd say 9 of 9 not being infected is pretty fricking huge for something that kills 1/2 the people that catch it and no other known immunization technique.
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For a population size of 6 billion, confidence interval of 95%, expected mean distribution of 50% (most conservative) of infection ratio, a sample size of 9 gives us a margin of error of 32% (try yourself: http://www.raosoft.com/samples... [raosoft.com])
Given 100% efficacy, it is highly significant, well outside the margin of error.
Is is significant even for 98% confidence.
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For a population size of 6 billion, confidence interval of 95%, expected mean distribution of 50% (most conservative) of infection ratio, a sample size of 9 gives us a margin of error of 32% (try yourself: http://www.raosoft.com/samples... [raosoft.com])
Given 100% efficacy, it is highly significant, well outside the margin of error.
Is is significant even for 98% confidence.
It doesn't work that way. The population size was 9. You're only right if those 9 were pulled from random from the current
human population but that's not what happened. They were all exposed. It would take a rediculous amount of trials if all results
had to be divided by 6 billion (or whatever the current population happens to be). That's like saying a bug spray that killed all 10k
mosquitos might not work because there are 10 trillion mosquitos in the world so your sample size is too small. I agree tha
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It is generally true that such studies should be considered preliminary. It's possible that this vaccine won't work for humans, or that the ebola virus will evolve around the vaccine so rapidly that it has no impact.
But clearly this sounds like a very promising start, and the researchers absolutely deserve to have more funding to finish their work. This is exactly the kind of thing that the NIH is designed to fund. But, due to Republican fuckery, NIH funding has been cut.
No Ebola - but they have colds (Score:3)
What could possibly go wrong with crossing Ebola with the common cold.
Sure hope the vaccine works, because you are going to NEED it soon.
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A few pieces of Ebola DNA != Ebola virus.
Don't get why you believe something can go wrong.
Go read a book!
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Although you are correct, the GP's though came to my mind too. This is the classical into to a apocalypse movie.
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Called out on my blatant troll, but I still have to say "yes, and"...
Re:Technicalities (Score:4, Funny)
That's true, it's know that you need 12 monkeys when a virus outbreak is there. :)
There are already ways to deliver vaccine (Score:5, Insightful)
without a needle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
Seems if needleless vaccination is your goal, this would be the way to go. Speaking as someone who got a flu shot from one of these it's a pretty painless experience.
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without a needle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
Seems if needleless vaccination is your goal, this would be the way to go. Speaking as someone who got a flu shot from one of these it's a pretty painless experience.
Uh, those things aren't supposed to be used for vaccines. Read your own link. There's a risk of transmission from patient to patient.
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They are for vaccines, but their use in medicine is no longer recommended due to cross-contamination risks.
If they're indeed painless however; the risk might be low enough that it's a worthwhile tradeoff, in case it means more people will opt for the vaccine.
Needles may be safer, but fewer people may get vaccinated due to perceived pain that will be required.
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From your link:
A breathable mist is even easier
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Except that in this case, if I understand correctly, you get the flue. Granted the flu is better than ebola, but this vaccine is not side effect free. It makes sense to administer it to people heading into the affected regions, but not a general purpose vaccine.
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"Seems if needleless vaccination is your goal, this would be the way to go."
Did you even read the article you linked???
Not to worry! (Score:5, Insightful)
With the republicans in charge, you won't be the only scientific group that doesn't have any funding! You'll have lots of company.
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With the republicans in charge, you won't be the only scientific group that doesn't have any funding! You'll have lots of company.
Hillarious... but seriously... There is no difference between republicans and democrats:
http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
So stop pretending there is.
Re:Not to worry! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're citing the cuts the republicans forced by threatening legislative innaction that would recrash the economy as evidence that Obama is complicit in anti-science behaviors?
I mean, there's lots Obama has done, hasn't done, but the shit the republicans intentionally caused by threatening criminally irresponsible negligence as a condition of obeying their legislative agenda isn't "his".
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Obama took much of the vaccine development money and redirected it to useless bs years ago. This had nothing to do with the Repubs.
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You're citing the cuts the republicans forced by threatening legislative innaction that would recrash the economy as evidence that Obama is complicit in anti-science behaviors?
I mean, there's lots Obama has done, hasn't done, but the shit the republicans intentionally caused by threatening criminally irresponsible negligence as a condition of obeying their legislative agenda isn't "his".
Seriously? wtf? Do you have any idea how the budget process works? and who the hell is modding you up?
This is the presidential budget proposal.
Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2... [wikipedia.org]
The president writes, whatever he wants, and sends it over to congress. He does not need their input or approval. This is the budget he's suggesting congress should consider. Several budgets are sent to congress by several departments of government. None have any legal bearing on what congress will pass. But obviously the presid
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Your link has nothing to do with what you claim.
Posted the wrong link?
I down modded you before ad off topic but as I undid it by posting (anonymously even) I thought I answer instead.
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So there's a claim that republicans cut spending for science, and I link to the democratic presidents current budget proposal, that keeps funding at that very same rate (a cut if you consider inflation), and you think that's not relevant?
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Pharmaceutical companies have no need or right to even $1 of government funding. Engineering vaccines is not fast or cheap. But the pharmaceutical companies do have a lengthy patent exclusivity to ensure they can recoup the R&D expenses and make a handsome profit before generics hit the market. The government has already allowed new Ebola drugs to be used even though the drugs have not finished human trials or completed the extensive process to certify the drugs.
The perceived panic about Ebola is blown
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Forgot already that George Bush issued an unheard of $8 billion in AIDS research for Africa, did we?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po... [go.com]
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Nitpick, but God created the earth on the first day and then populated it on days 5 and 6. The 7th day was spent resting, drinking beer, and watching football.
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I was an MIT student when Reagan was elected. A lot of us had work study jobs in research labs. The change in research wasn't so much a cut in funding a change in focus. "Deaths per dollar" became a familiar metric.
There was a guy who came to work in the same lab as me as an engineer. He'd been the PI of a project that developed an advanced electron microscope that was fifteen years ahead of its time. His project was discontinued because under the Reagan philosophy of science research the government shou
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There's clearly money to be made on an ebola vaccine.
Not really. Maybe you haven't heard, but ebola is primarily endemic in west Africa.
If this is as promising as they claim, drug companies will be more than willing to fund them in order to make money from the vaccine.
No. Clearly you aren't familiar with the industry, but pharma primarily focuses on using marketing to sell reformulations of existing drugs. If this was about a promising lead on a first-world problem, you might see some industry investment, but the fact is that the industry has turned away from R&D and likes things that way.
Government shouldn't be doing this.
If people like you had your way, there would be no satellites, no internet and no modern medical t
Money (Score:5, Interesting)
God forbid that Wall Street cough up any of that free government money it got over the last 6 years.. No, no, we should never demand that. That would be communism!
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
God forbid any of the African nations affected by this disease cough up any money.
Considering that the cost to the U.S. of this ebola outbreak is going to be in the billions of dollars, it makes a lot of sense to fund research into vaccines to reduce the cost to us later on, regardless of what other countries are doing.
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One of the most f**ked countries is Liberia. Founded by the US, the capitol is Monrovia, as in James Monroe, 'Merican President. It's been screwed for a while, partially because of western intervention. They are paying, in money and in lives. They don't have the capital to support a huge antiviral campaign in the scale that is needed in the time scale that is needed.
The US is not the sole reason for Liberia being f**ked. It's not even the main reason. But it is part, and since we do have a partial res
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That is misleading, if not false. I infer from that statement that you mean it was founded by the U.S. Government. Wikipedia confirms what I remembered:
It did have help from a private organization, but not the U.S. Government.
This is safe? (Score:2)
Re:This is safe? (Score:4, Informative)
Science doesn't care what sounds scary to you.
Re:This is safe? (Score:5, Informative)
I have no understanding of the dangers, or lack thereof, of viral payloads
Indeed. You see, biological information is partitioned into units called "genes," which are responsible for individual functions. A "viral payload" consists of the entire viral genome, usually containing at least several thousand genes. Here, just one (or perhaps a few) viral genes have been selected because they code for proteins which the immune system can use to identify infected cells.
There is no danger in making a weakened cold virus (you simply invented the connection to bacteria) which contains these ebola-infected-cell-identifying genes. None of the genes which make ebola dangerous are present. The modified cold virus trains the immune system to kill cells which look like they have ebola. If ebola itself shows up later on, the vaccinated immune system is already prepared to identify and kill infected cells.
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Vaccination does not train the immune system to kill infected cells.
It trains it to craft antibodies to attack the virus directly.
The rest of your post however is more or less correct and insightful/informative.
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We do not know what makes the ebola virus dangerous. Most of the genes in it are completely NOT understood.
Ebola is a very small virus, relatively speaking.
Ebola's methods are not understood.
Fortunately, you do not have to know or understand the virus to make a vaccine.
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So, the solution to Ebola involves profiling? Geez. /s
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Viruses are really damned small, and finding the right organism in an infected cell is anything but easy. Cells are full of all kinds of molecule-sized bits and pieces of shit. As of today, it is not even a certainty that the ebola virus has been positively identified, let alone properly categorized; there have been reports of over 250 mutation variants, any of which might be a mutated ebola virus, or maybe just another virus which might just have been present through the isolation process. Maybe just random bits of crap from a previous disease vector or vaccination injection. Nobody really knows for sure. It's pretty murky down there, and determining which organism causes what effects is a sloppy science, and it takes a huge amount of time and energy to even approximate answers.
Viruses are indeed really damned small, but not much else is true in this paragraph, which is mostly FUD. Nobody outside the ranks of medical conspiracy theorists doubts that the Ebola virus has been positively identified. We are about as certain of this are we are about the identity of, say, a tiger or an oak tree. Its genome has been completely sequenced many times. Yes, mutations have been found in viruses from the current epidemic that weren't found in previous outbreaks. There's nothing surprising abou
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And on that point, has anybody actually isolated and sequenced a confirmed ebola sample from a human subject who died from that specific infection in the affected region?
Yes, there are complete genomes from 78 cases (not necessarily fatal, but with confirmed EVD) in this publication alone:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... [nih.gov]
This genomic sequence cannot be detected in uninfected individuals. It simply isn't there. Run the analysis on a thousand random blood samples from, say, the US or Europe, and you'll never see it. Does that suggest anything to you? (I assume from your language, which is similar to that used by HIV denialists, that it might not!).
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There is no viral payload genetically engineered into a bacterium.
Go read a book!
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Well, (Score:3, Interesting)
Obama wants 6.2 billion to combat Ebola [chicagotribune.com] I doubt he'll get it after last night, but if he does, maybe some of that will go to research?
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Funny)
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There are not two viruses paired. ...
A weakened virus got a few pieces of DNA from another virus added. Like putting cream on top of a couple of ice boules
I like monkeys (Score:2)
It's great news.
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Privatization (Score:2)
Deadly virus starts very slowly over years in third world country where there is no money to be made by creating a vaccine. Years later, virus starts spreading through the entire world at an alarming rate, killing all infected within 5 hours of contracting the disease, which spreads as easy as measles, at which point it's too late to develop a vaccine.
(My point being, a government funded research la
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Oh come on. That's easy. The free market would solve this problem by selling hazmat suits, hermetically-sealed penthouse apartments, and lots and lots of guns and canned goods. Just like any decent zombie movie, the people who can afford this stuff will survive, and the people who can't won't. Problem solved once the latter people die off and stop transmitting the disease. Then the people who can manage things for themselves rather than accepting government vaccine handouts can go back to business as u
I have a suggestion as to where to get funding (Score:2)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) just announced that it will be spending $31 million to "enhance diversity in the biomedical research workforce."
$31 million seem like it would buy ... a lot of diversity ... I guess.
Maybe some of the money could be diverted toward actual research like this.
lllll AJ
Snark aside, this is huge. (Score:3)
Yyyyyyup. (Score:2)
Kickstarter (Score:5, Funny)
ebola doesn't have DNA - it has RNA (Score:3, Insightful)
ebola doesn't have DNA - it has RNA (Score:2)
You could always read the original paper
: A Single Dose Respiratory Recombinant Adenovirus-Based Vaccine Provides Long-Term Protection for Non-Human Primates from Lethal Ebola Infection
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10... [acs.org]
is a link to the abstract, the full PDF requires a free registration
Re:ebola doesn't have DNA - it has RNA (Score:5, Informative)
The vaccine vector is an Adenovirus, a DNA virus. The recombinant Ebola virus gene it carries will be in the form of DNA, designed to encode the same protein as the original RNA gene in the Ebola virus. It's the protein that is important, since this what the immune system will raise its response against.
Something is wring here .... (Score:2)
Aren't it supposed to be twelve monkeys?
Whose Wallet? (Score:2)
Monkey ebola is not human ebola (Score:2)
There are currently five known variants of Ebola. One affects monkeys, the other four affect humans. Humans do not catch the monkey variant (Ebola Reston).
Chimps and Gorillas (Great apes?) do catch Ebola, and get wiped out by it.
So making a vaccine against monkey Ebola may do humans no good at all.
Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Côte d'Ivoire, Ebola-Reston, and Ebola-Bundibugyo are the variants currently known.
More bad news, Ebola mutates very quickly. All variants appear to have evolved from an origin
Progress on the GMO front! (Score:2)
Scientists have developed vaccine against Ebola that is 100% effective in trials.
They did this by genetically engineering in the genes from the common cold.
The common cold, one of the most infectious and easily spread diseases.
Ebola, one of the most lethal and devestating diseases known to mankind.
What could possibly go wrong?
It's being done in Texas? (Score:2)
Well, that funding is doomed.
After all, science flies in the face of the elected party's platform, or at least one plank [washingtonpost.com], albeit a critical one.
It's a conspiracy! (Score:2)
Obviously, if no one is coming forward with money, it must be a conspiracy.
airborne (Score:2)
funny that, when I think the biggest concern about Ebola was that it would become airborne, turns out we are *making* it so!
Re:monkeys like us or monkeys like monkeys? (Score:5, Funny)
No no no ... monkeys like bananas, we like monkeys ... I'm sure some monkeys like us, and I'm pretty sure monkeys also like other monkeys or they'd have died out by now ... but we're talking, like, monkeys.
Monkeys, like, us. Monkeys, like us. Monkeys like us.
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monkeys like us or monkeys like monkeys?
We're primates, but not monkeys. The vaccine works nasally for monkeys, so now I just need a monkey nose and I'm safe - hopefully the Aggies will get full monkey nose funding soon.
Re: monkeys like us or monkeys like monkeys? (Score:2)
I think you mean longhorns, not Aggies.
good. now, about the fruit bats... (Score:2)
once the vaccine works in fruit bats as well as monkeys, it's time for a general rollout to all wild beasties.
oh, wait, there was some talk of humans at one time, wasn't there?
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No sane person would ever stop funding for something like this. That is proof this is the Republican's fault.
On the other hand, wouldn't Republicans fund it and then sell the vaccine at a huge profit? Why would they not do this? (Because they hate... black people?... no wait... um.. I got nuthin.)
It's not obvious? (Score:2)
Because, there is no market it for it where people can pay exorbitant amounts for it. The dying people are penniless.
Although, maybe that's what the media fear mongering is all about? Maybe they will back it after all once they whip everyone in to a "think of YOUR children dying horribly of Ebola - get vaccinated fast!" buying frenzy?
What do I know, I got modded troll for saying the Apple CEO probably came out for marketing purposes - he released an accessory (iWatch) the next day.
=)
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> Because, there is no market it for it where people can pay exorbitant amounts for it. The dying people are penniless.
The way containment appears to be being mishandled, I suspect that isn't going to be true for much longer.
> What do I know, I got modded troll for saying the Apple CEO probably came out for marketing purposes - he released an accessory (iWatch) the next day.
I may burn in hell for this, but that's funny.
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Because, there is no market it for it where people can pay exorbitant amounts for it. The dying people are penniless.
Sure there is a market. There are plenty of companies that make plenty of money by selling to paranoid people. Look at all the
money made during Y2K. If they were selling an ebola vaccine at walgreens people would be lined up around the block getting it.
I was actually just thinking that this would be a decent way to pay for ebola vaccines. Sell them as a buy 1 give 1. Everytime
some paranoid person buys one at walgreens then they donate one to africa. This has the added benefit as the vaccine to
africa i
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Because, there is no market it for it where people can pay exorbitant amounts for it. The dying people are penniless.
The people may be, but the countries hosting them are not.Even if they are cash strapped the world bank will love to approve a credit for them, for a small fee, so that they can pay for ebola vaccines. The customers are not the affected individuals, but their country.
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No profit potential, no drugs. That holds true for both parties, but you don't here too much about big pharma, because they donate alot to the dems.
Or it might get funding once Bill Gates or some other wealthy philanthropist decides he is going to pay for it. Or he might not give a shit, and no one develops this vaccine. Isn't philianthropy great. A few rich people make small exceptions to capitalism so they
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> not really, because ebola is mostly in Africa
For now.
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not really, because ebola is mostly in Africa, where no one is going to pay a lot of money for this.
Just because it is currently only in africa doesn't mean there wouldn't be plenty of
paranoid people in first world countries willing to pay money for a vaccine.
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Yeah, it's all Dick Chaney's fault. [bloomberg.com] Oh wait, it says in the article that Dick Cheney was largely responsible for the large funding increase for treatment of Ebola, etc.
Now the Bloomberg article clearly and accurately points out that Cheney did this to combat potential terrorism threats. But hey, no reason not to blame Republicans for being pro-death, anti-vaccine, etc. just because you have no idea about the actual funding details in this case.
Like most people, Dick Cheney has some things to like, some thin
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Democrats until January (Score:2)
Until January, Democrats have control since they control both the Senate and the presidency. In January we'll have a bipartisan government, with republicans having some control. I'll bet $100 that this gets funded within 30 days of the date the new republicans go to Washington.
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Those academic scientists at (insert school) and their money grubbing ways, always asking for a handout, feeding off the public trough.
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Be careful for what you wish for, please. I'm worried those "flags" might be doing something inappropriate.
But of course they are.
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Expect any posts that point to disappeared posts to be disappeared as well, with the account modbombed into oblivion and permanent '-2' status.