Paul Allen Pledges $100 Million in Fight Against Ebola

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,400
Bill Gates is not the only big time philanthropist in the Microsoft organization. Responding to the Ebola crisis in Africa, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has donated a whopping $100 Million dollars to treat and stop the disease from spreading.

Allen's pledge far surpasses the amount of money that has been raised by a United Nations fund to fight Ebola set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which last week totaled only $100,000.
 
Allen will probably make sure his money gets used properly. The money the UN raises will more likely end up in officials' pockets.
 
we've had sars, bird flu, swine flu, ebola... all were possible pandemics yet a couple thousand died out of whatever many billion human beings we currently have on the planet. the result is always truckloads of money for the pharma industry. i vote for dinosaur flu as next year's pandemic.
 
we've had sars, bird flu, swine flu, ebola... all were possible pandemics yet a couple thousand died out of whatever many billion human beings we currently have on the planet. the result is always truckloads of money for the pharma industry. i vote for dinosaur flu as next year's pandemic.

I tend to agree with this sentiment but I don't think Ebola is contagious enough in normal conditions to spread much beyond local/regional areas with sanitation concerns (as compared to more industrialized areas). Ebola is frightening stuff, and if it spread like influenza we would probably all be dead :(
 
Allen will probably make sure his money gets used properly. The money the UN raises will more likely end up in officials' pockets.

I agree. Any rich executive is probably more effective than the entire UN.
 
and they are going to need that money... because it's going to take a lot to convince anyone to go over to some of these backwards countries and risk getting chopped up murdered with a machete because the locals are THAT fucking stupid when it comes to medicine.

Education would fix a lot of it... problem is, they are so retarded and stuck in the old ways of thinking you can't even drop any knowledge on them. Ebola wiping some of these places is actually probably the most efficient way to get rid of these problems. (yeah... that's right I said it)
 
So nice for someone from MS to finally give back to society because the headlines are always full of generous philanthropists made rich by Apple products.
 
Allen will probably make sure his money gets used properly. The money the UN raises will more likely end up in officials' pockets.

They probably do like the Red Cross, people donate for this "charity of the moment" instances like this but don't realize that their money does not go to what they think it is, it goes to a general fund which then gets distributed as such. So you might not care about AIDS or what not (fuck that let them people die right?!) but Ebola lets stop it!!! Here's some money! Actually helps what you don't want as well.

That said, these bad outbreaks like this really need to be let to fester. The reason all these flu outbreaks are bad like they are is because 1) crowded living conditions and 2) globalization. Maybe getting kicked it the ass every now and then is actually good for us. I mean how long did civilization live in disease when we figured out that having some method of sewage transport was a good thing.
 
They probably do like the Red Cross, people donate for this "charity of the moment" instances like this but don't realize that their money does not go to what they think it is, it goes to a general fund which then gets distributed as such. So you might not care about AIDS or what not (fuck that let them people die right?!) but Ebola lets stop it!!! Here's some money! Actually helps what you don't want as well.

That said, these bad outbreaks like this really need to be let to fester. The reason all these flu outbreaks are bad like they are is because 1) crowded living conditions and 2) globalization. Maybe getting kicked it the ass every now and then is actually good for us. I mean how long did civilization live in disease when we figured out that having some method of sewage transport was a good thing.

IDK, if you've ever been to South Carolina or Georgia you'd know we haven't really figured out that sewage transport thing-y yet.

Also, I really don't like the idea of doing nothing at all for the horribad diseases because it sucks for the people who die from it or hafta watch someone they care about die, but you do kinda have a point. This disease stuff is like a population control thing and we're are sorta defying it which _might_ mean that some other much yuckier thing will come along to control population instead, like that Red Bull drink or Windows 8.
 
Where was this help a decade ago? Nobody really cared when it was just a few thousand Africans dying from it, but now that it's "over here", everyone's up in arms about how it has to be stopped.
 
we've had sars, bird flu, swine flu, ebola... all were possible pandemics yet a couple thousand died out of whatever many billion human beings we currently have on the planet. the result is always truckloads of money for the pharma industry. i vote for dinosaur flu as next year's pandemic.

True, except BigPharma doesn't get involved when the treatment is for poor countries - there's no return on investment. It's a sad fact. Most of the vaccinations / medication advancements that come for these diseases come out of universities.

BigPharma has the braintrust to do good things for humanity, but they simply won't. They're too busy billing insurance companies for $70k/mo experimental cancer drugs.

I tend to agree with this sentiment but I don't think Ebola is contagious enough in normal conditions to spread much beyond local/regional areas with sanitation concerns (as compared to more industrialized areas). Ebola is frightening stuff, and if it spread like influenza we would probably all be dead :(

The issue with Ebola is whether it will mutate. Everything evolves (except extremely right-wing Christian's from Kansas *boom chass*) to survive. The H1N1 and other recent outbreaks are from diseases that were related to one species that jumped ship to another all of a sudden. If Ebola evolves to be more contagious, that'd be a dangerous thing.

There's currently a few leading treatment researchers. The university that developed the treatment that worked on Ken Brantly and co. There's also another group that is monitoring the natural survivors of Ebola, including taking blood to try and narrow down the antigens they possess. Both research branches have shown promising results. This money might put them over the top on finding something that works.
 
Where was this help a decade ago? Nobody really cared when it was just a few thousand Africans dying from it, but now that it's "over here", everyone's up in arms about how it has to be stopped.

Just as we don't care that there has been a genocidal war going on in Africa for years.

Africa is the west's ghetto. We don't care what you do or how you do it, just keep it within the ghetto walls.
 
According to my cousin who writes books on this stuff, a lot of the Ebola cases in west africa aren't even actually Ebola, but Marburg "reclassified" as Ebola because they don't get any financial aid for Marburg.
 
The issue with Ebola is whether it will mutate. Everything evolves (except extremely right-wing Christian's from Kansas *boom chass*) to survive. The H1N1 and other recent outbreaks are from diseases that were related to one species that jumped ship to another all of a sudden. If Ebola evolves to be more contagious, that'd be a dangerous thing.

Fortunately for us, "going airborne" turns out to be an exceedingly unlikely thing, rather like a bear suddenly growing wings:

"Although Ebola becoming airborne is the ultimate disease nightmare, that seems to be almost vanishingly improbable, for reasons well put in a recent article in the Washington Post by Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. What is now a fluid-borne virus attaching itself to cells lining the circulatory system can't easily change into one that targets the tiny air sacs in the lungs. 'That's a genetic leap in the realm of science fiction,' Garrett wrote. The virus probably will not go airborne, but it could conceivably increase its Darwinian fitness in other ways, becoming more subtle and elusive."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...a-virus-outbreak-pandemic-zoonotic-contagion/

(That's a very good, non-hysterical article about the origins and possible future for ebola.)
 
Also, I really don't like the idea of doing nothing at all for the horribad diseases because it sucks for the people who die from it or hafta watch someone they care about die, but you do kinda have a point. This disease stuff is like a population control thing and we're are sorta defying it which _might_ mean that some other much yuckier thing will come along to control population instead, like that Red Bull drink or Windows 8.
Its not that I don't want to do anything, I do want to do something, however the something that I want to do is to prevent people within this regions from traveling to where I live, and if you're going to knee jerk "they have a right to be here, they're Americans" then forcefully quarantine them fuckers for a month until you are sure they have no traces of it.

I mean what is the extent of what the US has done to combat this? Lets see we take someones temperature at the airport (useless unless they're already showing symptoms) and give them an "ebola kit" that has a thermometer and some instructions on what to look out for and to quarantine yourself if necessary. Lets see how well did that work out? We had nurse who treated ebola patient take a flight to Cleveland for shits and giggles, a lab tech who worked with the Dallas ebola case decided to take a cruise, a News show doctor who had a camera man exposed and said she'd quarantine herself voluntarily say "fuck that, I feel fine, and I'm a doctor, I'm going to a deli because they have good soup". Granted those last two turned up negative but what if they weren't negative? The whole "human element" of "voluntary action" obviously doesn't fucking work.

So the US upped the game, people from those regions can only land at one of 5 airports... and then get the thermometer treatment and have the same fucking thing all over again. And what happened with that? Doctor came back, he felt fine, no temperature, then POP ebola... now those states up there are requiring mandatory quarantining for anyone who dealt with ebola patients which is a step... but just like the guy in Dallas ... checking a "NO" on a pamphlet isn't exactly secure measures.
 
They probably do like the Red Cross, people donate for this "charity of the moment" instances like this but don't realize that their money does not go to what they think it is
no kidding. My mom has been a registered nurse for about two decades and knows what's going on. I'm sure Red Cross is great in some places, but overall the blood donation programs = their income $$$.
 
Its not that I don't want to do anything, I do want to do something, however the something that I want to do is to prevent people within this regions from traveling to where I live, and if you're going to knee jerk "they have a right to be here, they're Americans" then forcefully quarantine them fuckers for a month until you are sure they have no traces of it.

I mean what is the extent of what the US has done to combat this? Lets see we take someones temperature at the airport (useless unless they're already showing symptoms) and give them an "ebola kit" that has a thermometer and some instructions on what to look out for and to quarantine yourself if necessary. Lets see how well did that work out? We had nurse who treated ebola patient take a flight to Cleveland for shits and giggles, a lab tech who worked with the Dallas ebola case decided to take a cruise, a News show doctor who had a camera man exposed and said she'd quarantine herself voluntarily say "fuck that, I feel fine, and I'm a doctor, I'm going to a deli because they have good soup". Granted those last two turned up negative but what if they weren't negative? The whole "human element" of "voluntary action" obviously doesn't fucking work.

So the US upped the game, people from those regions can only land at one of 5 airports... and then get the thermometer treatment and have the same fucking thing all over again. And what happened with that? Doctor came back, he felt fine, no temperature, then POP ebola... now those states up there are requiring mandatory quarantining for anyone who dealt with ebola patients which is a step... but just like the guy in Dallas ... checking a "NO" on a pamphlet isn't exactly secure measures.

I guess I understand how you feel. I'd really prefer that this stuff wasn't getting across the ocean and into the US, but it's really hard to control the movement of people from place to place aaaand it'd be pretty expensive to keep them stuck in quarantine for a while.
 
Back
Top