Talk:ZMapp/Archive 1

Archive 1

Safety

We don't need a general discussion of the safety of mAbs in this article. mAbs have been used as drugs since the late 1980s - we have almost thirty years of experience with this class of drug molecule. I understand that maybe some filler was wanted, but we don't need it now. with respect to various bioproduction systems, there are tons of arguments you can make this way and that way over what system if safer, cheaper, etc etc. We don't need to get into that debate on a specific drug either. the content on the safety of ZMapp was fine - that can stay! Jytdog (talk) 18:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, good. The article monoclonal antibody therapy has some info about the different mAbs as well. prokaryotes (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

thanks for adding the content relevant to safety of ZMapp! Jytdog (talk) 19:07, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you too Jytdog, for helping to improve the article.prokaryotes (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Production process

The current production process section, only highlights the generation of MB-003 mAbs. Someone, or me should add the ZMAb procedure as well, and this could also be made more clear in the current article image description (Which focuses on ZMAb generation). Also to improve understanding, we could merge the production section with ZMAb and MB-003. prokaryotes (talk) 15:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There is now info on ZMAb prodcution as well, it remains a bit unclear though - since it covers the mAbs production processes for ZMAb and MB-003, maybe we could improve the section further by separating these production processes. prokaryotes (talk) 15:28, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are talking about... it seems that you think that Mapp is producing the three mAbs in ZMapp using different methods; is that right? It is my understanding that whatever the history was, Mapp is producing all three the same way (in tobacco) now. (this is as per the Forbes article). I may have that wrong, of course. Jytdog (talk) 16:36, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Since the studies cited from MB, relate only to MB-003, it is unclear to me if the ZMAb mAbs, are also produced in the process currently described. See also, Defyrus http://www.defyrus.com/products_ebola-zmab.html (See publication section for ZMAb). And it is unclear which particular "three" mAbs are used. prokaryotes (talk) 17:16, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

All we know about ZMapp right now it is 3 Mabs with the "best components" of ZMab and MB-003. we do not know what the three are. this is true. If you read the forbes article I linked to above, you will see that the guy from Reynolds said "KBP complied with a request from Emory University Hospital and Samaritan’s Purse to provide a limited amount of ZMapp." (KPB is Kentucky Bioprocessing, which is making mAbs in tobacco for Mapp/Leaf). So clearly, however the Canadian components started, they are now also being produced in tobacco. Added refs for Forbes article and another article explaining that. Jytdog (talk) 17:56, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, and according to this article, two mAbs are from the ZMAb work. prokaryotes (talk) 17:58, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Would it be possible to add a discussion on how expensive the drug is to produce, and how easy it would be to scale up production? Thanks 128.132.1.254 (talk) 14:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)JAF

I've not seen any discussions of that with respect to ZMapp. There might be general discusion available for pharming but the discussion would belong there, not here, as we have no specific information for ZMapp (generally that information is not publicly available for any drug) Jytdog (talk) 15:07, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

There are some information included in this study paper, see for instance RAMP (rapid antibody manufacturing platform ). prokaryotes (talk) 15:43, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Plant Antibodies?

Plants do not produce antibodies to fight infection. The gene for the human antibodies is implanted in the plant cells via mosaic viral gene transfer. And the proteins are then produced and assembled by the plant, but it doesn't use them for any purpose. The section could use clarification. Process --69.126.70.32 (talk) 18:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, i have clarified the process step, see also. prokaryotes (talk) 18:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the process, the article linked above, from arstechnica mentions "They injected mice with the Ebola glycoprotein and then fused individual antibody-producing cells with a cancer cell." Could someone elaborate on this? Thanks. prokaryotes (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Fusing with cancer cells is a standard part of the process. Cancer cells have been immortalized (i.e. they can reproduce without limit) whereas other cells can only divide a finite number of times before they die. Immortalization is necessary to get enough genetic material to allow the further steps of the process to be carried out. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:42, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

there is a link in our article to Hybridoma technology in the section under discussion - please read that, and it will explain the story. let us know if you have questions after that... Jytdog (talk) 02:45, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the hints, in regards to further questions, i have added a new section on mechanism Monoclonal_antibody#Mechanisms_of_action. --prokaryotes (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, I am not related to the researcher named "Spriggs" who is mentioned in Hybridoma technology. I am merely someone who used to read "Nature" and "Science".

To prokaryotes: You did not mention labeling a cell for destruction by the immune system (killer T-cells and macrophages, I think). JRSpriggs (talk) 11:41, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, i still learning all the relevant aspects of the science, so that was just an addition in response to Jytdog. --prokaryotes (talk) 19:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Genetically modified organisms

The tobacco plants in which ZMapp is produced are genetically modified organisms, as are the hybridomas used to produce them. Given the hysterical and irrational prejudice against GMOs, it would be nice to use this example of beneficial GMOs to help counter that prejudice. So I suggest that the article point out these facts. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

If there are reliable secondary sources writing about this topic and ZMapp, we could mention it. --prokaryotes (talk) 16:26, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I added a couple of what I thought were reliable secondary sources (the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times) but Jytdog has deleted the Wall Street Journal reference. SylviaStanley (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

both are popular press which is less than desirable for science-related content. but the WSJ is an opinion piece and has no place being used as a source for any content in wikipedia other than content describing the thoughts of the author of that piece (which I doubt are notable) - please don't use the wsj piece here or elsewhere. but i won't re-revert the use of the NY Times piece. Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I do wonder what would happen if someone smoked tobacco with large amounts of human antibody peptides in it. Could it cause a peculiar sort of allergic reaction? I doubt I'll find anything though. Wnt (talk) 22:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I looked into this and besides the fact that during the burning process, agents are destroyed, immunogenicity can be prevented by the usage of aglycosylated mAbs (antibodies), thus N-glycosylation lacking core fucose.1, 2, 3. --prokaryotes (talk) 23:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Wnt thanks for that addition - i moved it to the body of the article, and removed your description of how it works. passive immunization has multiple mechanisms, along with neutralizing. Jytdog (talk) 23:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

more detail about one-offs

more detail about one of the people who got ZMapp was added today in this dif, which I reverted. The content was "It has been revealed that Pajares was also sick with typhus. (http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/24736/christian-charity-doctor-repatriated-from-liberia-dies-in-madrid-hospital)" In my view this has nothing to do with ZMapp, the drug. I know, I know, you are going to say "But that's why Parjaes died - it's why ZMapp didn't save him!" This is horrific logic. We do NOT put health related information into Wikipedia based on anecdotes. We have NO idea if ZMmapp is safe and effective (as all authorities and responsible media say over and over and over). We will not know until ZMapp is used in a lot of people, and we gather data, and study it. So -

• a) the impulse to add this information is understandable but dead wrong;
• b) if we take it seriously, are we going to provide some kind of in-depth history on all the people who got ZMapp? Surely that is crazy and also terribly invasive. So no - just let it go.
• c) Having details on these people is really raw WP:RECENTISM and not what we should have. I know there are communities within WP who love to capture breaking news and get all excited about that. I am not one of those people - in my view WP is an encyclopedia and we don't give a rats ass about what happened today, mostly because 90% of the time we don't know if it will matter in 5 years and there is no way to assign appropriate WP:WEIGHT to it (we have no crystal ball). But the newshounds have a home here as much as I do (maybe more so - "In the news" is on WP's home page, after all) and so I am not fighting to keep the news about these individuals out of the article; I am fine with them being in here. But we should keep content about the treated people to a minimum, and everybody should know that in the future, content about these people will ~probably~ be pushed out of the article by relevant information about the drug's actual safety and effectiveness. Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I generally agree, but since there are only a handful of patients which received ZMapp and much focus lays on results, i wouldn't mind to add this detail. However, it brings up more questions, which might be best answered with study conclusions (which do not exist yet). --prokaryotes (talk) 23:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Anecdotes may not be complete proof, but they are evidence. If they were not, then no one would put them into the article at all. Given that the case is being interpreted as evidence, an alternative explanation for the person's death is relevant and should be included.

For that matter, even a large carefully controlled study is not absolute proof. No such thing as absolute proof exists in empirical science. It is all just a matter of degrees of belief. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:24, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

the only reason why the one-offs are in the article are because they are Big News RIght Now (WP:RECENTISM). Per WP:MEDRS, which is our guideline for health related content, they should not be here at all. This is a case we are waaay bending that. But I tell ya, in a couple of years that content will be mostly gone. Jytdog (talk) 02:47, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Blatant copyvio holding up DYK

Taken from Template:Did you know nominations/ZMapp

While the article has improved immeasurably from its original state, that original version created in a series of edits by Johndheathcote on August 5 contained a great deal of close paraphrasing, if not outright copyvio. Not all of it is gone: I removed one copyvio phrase from the article a short while ago, which contained useful information probably available elsewhere; having just found another, I'm putting this article on hold while someone deals with the problem. The current problem is the article's "The antibody work came out of research projects funded by the U.S. Army more than a decade ago", which is far to close to the source's "The antibody work came out of research projects funded more than a decade ago by the U.S. Army"—all the words are the same, with "by the U.S. army" moved slightly earlier. Oddly, in the Johndheathcote edits, the word "funded" was omitted, and there wasn't a source; whoever found the source and added it made things worse by adding "funded". BlueMoonset (talk) 03:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

don't care about DYK at all, but I will look into the copyvio for sure - that is a serious issue. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I tried to change it around a bit but I have little understanding of the subject matter. If someone could edit the article where it has been copy and pasted from other websites. -- Esemono (talk) 05:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

addressed. i think the problem was only in the oldest part, where the companies developing it were described. please let me know if you find any more. Jytdog (talk) 08:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

edits by AHeneen

in this dif], AHeneen expanded the content on the first patients treated and and added an ethics section. This is an article about a drug in development, so WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS apply to anything health-related in it.

Here are issues with the edits:

• health-related content has been added that is supported by sources not compliant with MEDRS (e.g. the the Telegraph article. We want to stay away from that as much as we can.

• The edits suffer somewhat from WP:RECENTISM and covering things in journalistic fashion, but this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper.
  • In the big picture of this drug - in a year or on the outside maybe two, the fine detail on the patients and how they received the drug is not going to matter. Today, we have no idea if the drug is safe and effective, and the article, before these edits, was clear on that. Folks have coe by and tried to expand this to make it seem like ZMapp is a wonder-drug; you are actually the first to play up speculation that it did nothing. Both are speculation and we don't do WP:CRYSTALBALL either. We'll know if Zmapp is safe and effective after it is tested in a lot of people.
  • the details on who got the drug is also, to be frank just kind of gossipy and also has nothing to do with the drug itself. The article used to have more detail (names, etc) but per discussion above we had reduced that information, to avoid RECENTISM and emphasizing one-off treatments too much, as they don't matter in the big picture.

• With respect to the ethics section, it was a good call moving this out of "approval" which was not an appropriate section. under MEDMOS there is a "society and culture" section and i moved the existing content there. it does make sense to go into that some. the added quote from the NOVA show basically just re-iterates what is already there (it was done with consent, it was controversial, and had the legacy of colonialism/exploitation makes the ethical issues harder).

Thanks for wanting to improve the article.! Jytdog (talk) 11:11, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

MEDMOS headings

Drmies thanks for the cleanup - i know you are working on getting this ready for a DYK. this article has been under all kinds of kooky pressure to make it be about some "magic serum" or some fantastically successful drug and all kinds of other news-driven crap. I and others have been working to keep it close to MEDMOS in structure and following MEDRS with sourcing to keep it encylopedic. With the increased scrutiny that DKY may bring, it would be useful to keep hewing as closely as we can to strong backbone of the MEDMOS guideline. I hope that makes sense. Jytdog (talk) 22:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hey, I gotta stop and make dinner here. I am not familiar with those headings--please tweak as you see fit. But "Culture and Society", or whatever it was, I didn't find that particularly pretty or helpful. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 22:49, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
• Look, Jytgod, "for Pete's sake"? I just looked at MEDMOS and it suggests these sections, it does not dictate them. There is good reason to have those sections for established products, but that's not where we are here, and "Society and culture", for instance, is just way too vague for the content here. I'm not going to mess with it, since I probably already did more than I should, but I think it's silly it is so general when there is one single issue here: should it have been given, untested, to Africans first? BTW, I noticed that you referenced NOTNEWS in the section above--given what this medicine is, at the moment, I don't think NOTNEWS applies very much here; if it did you'd have to scrap more than half of the article. Drmies (talk) 23:18, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

:) yes i am (it will surprise you) trying to be reasonable - there are editors here who really want the newsy stuff and if this were my article I would get rid of almost all that. but its not. I will yield on the secton header. sorry for the "pete's sake" - i had already changed the headers back once citing MEDMOS after you had changed them, and you did it again without a nod to that, and i lost my a cool a bit. sorry. i do wish we could edit edit-summaries sometimes. and i hope your dinner came out ok. Jytdog (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

edits by truthaboutebola

in these difs, Truthaboutebola added content that provides additional information about other treatments that two of the individual patients had. these treatments have nothing to do with the drug. we don't know if the drug is safe and effective yet (as the article says) and we won't know until it is tested on large numbers of people. The article does not say that ZMapp cured anybody. It says that patient X received the drug and whether they lived or died. The information is meaningless with regard to whether the drug is safe and effective or not. per the edit note on the 3rd editwarring restoration (" the article is about ZMabb, shouldn't be misleading that it was the sole reason for the 2 US healthcare workers to survive ebola!"), truthaboutebola seems to think the article does say that ZMapp cured the disease. the article does not say that. the content was off-topic, so i removed it. please do not edit war over this, and discuss instead, per WP:BRD. Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 16:49, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

When you say "patient X received the drug and that they lived" it implies that the drug was effective. If the article is not supposed to discuss whether the drug is effective or not, then it should not mention whether the patient who received it survived or died. It should just say that 7 patients have received the drug so far with variable outcomes. Thank you. (Truthaboutebola (talk) 19:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC))

you finally found it! hooray. If I had my way the article would say even less, or at most, something like what you propose, which is what Wikipedia says about ZMapp in the west african outbreak article, namely:

"The limited supply of the drug has been used to treat 7 individuals infected with the Ebola virus. Although some of them have recovered, the outcome is not considered to be statistically significant.

My sense is that something that reduced would not fly in this article, as others have come through and wanted to do the exact opposite and expand the information about the individuals who have been treated. The current content is an effort at compromise, so that we can have a relatively stable text. That compromise may change, but the way to do that is through discussion here. Let's see what others have to say. Jytdog (talk) 20:14, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

to try to compromise with you, i just added that sentence above, to our article. Jytdog (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

To Jytdog: As I said at Talk:ZMapp/Archive 1#more detail about one-offs, single instances (anecdotes, not studies) are evidence just as studies are evidence. Your statement that "The information is meaningless with regard to whether the drug is safe and effective or not." is simply false. Anyone with a basic knowledge of probability and statistics could tell you that. Statistical significance is based upon an arbitrary threshold. The posterior probability does not jump from no-change to some-change just when one crosses the threshold; rather it changes continuously as more data points are included. Thus the policy you are supporting is wrong-headed.

I agree that some level of relevance must be reached before a fact is included in the article, but, given the interest and importance of this subject, we are well past that point. JRSpriggs (talk) 01:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

please note that i have not done anything to take the one-offs out. i know that there is too much interest in them (wrong headed as that is) to do that. i am sorry that some folks don't understand that large numbers are needed to obtain statistical significance when dealing with something as "noisy" (datawise) as human health (part of truthaboutebolas' point was that in the "wild" - outside of a controlled clinical trial - there are many confounders that make the data even more noisy; for instance, some of the people given ZMapp were also given other treatments, like IvIg). but in any case, this is not about what we think, but what sources say. i added a source yesterday that the folks working on the west africa outbreak had used. it includes the quote "When asked specifically about the experimental antibodies, Ribner said that it was impossible to know if the treatment helped the patients, did nothing, or delayed their course of recovery." from (here). This is obvious to anybody who understands drug development. but like i said, this is not about our opinions. for those who say the results are meaningful, please bring reliable sources and very good ones at that, because the claim that we know anything about whether ZMapp is safe and effective from these one-offs, is extraordinary. thanks. Jytdog (talk)

'Nicotiana bethamiana' plant

This comment is in response to this edit [1], where the editor gives credit to a team in Austria for the Nicotiana bethamiana (host) used to produce ZMapp. I am aware that it is a common plant molecular biology tool, so unless the IP editor cites a reference that it is the exact same mutant strain, I support the deletion by user Jytdog. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 14:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I have added this information because it completes the story. We think it is of the interest of readers to get a comprehensive information about the production of the antibody cocktail. To confirm our statements we cite two previous publications.Thanks 141.244.239.53 (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.239.122 (talk)

who is "we"? thanks I want to note that if you are from the lab or institute, you have a conflict of interest on that subject matter and you should not be directly editing content related to your lab or insitute. Also if you are being paid to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose that under our terms of use. Please see WP:COI and WP:EXPERT. Jytdog (talk) 14:06, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, although the research is peer-reviewed, the first reference does not mention Ebola nor ZMapp. The second reference (2011) is relevant, but fails to support your statement that this was the exact mutant plant strain used for ZMapp production. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Does someone have access to PMID 23949286? It would seem from the abstract to be a better, more current, review source for much of the plant production discussion. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:41, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

We need to be a bit careful here. Lots of academics to lots of experiments, but whatever we cite here needs to be very clearly about this drug. I think the best and most recent review source is PMID: 2277279 which is a review by the people behind ZMapp and describes their process. it is a chapter from the book cited in PMID 23949286. i will add it to the article. Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

It's all yours, Jytdog. Please also trim any no-longer-required primary sources while at it. Ty. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for finding that excellent new book!! Jytdog (talk) 18:39, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

We're usually leary of using conference proceedings, but PMC 4113787/ may still have some utility. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

edits by Alexbrn

How are "aljazeera" and "USA today" better sources than "science insider" and "abc news"? (Truthaboutebola (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC))

Huh? Don't recall using either aljazeera or USA today here. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:00, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Please look at the other references in the ZMapp article. You don't have a problem with those citations? (Truthaboutebola (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2014 (UTC))

No idea, since I'm recently here and seeing changes as they show on my watchlist. Anyhow, in general, existing poor stuff is not an excuse for additional poor stuff. Got a contructive suggestion here to improve the article? If so, state it. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

News sources reports on ZMapp

On 10/11 an article was run in the NY Daily News and elsewhere saying that the Spanish patient had been given Zmapp: [2]

However these sources (and others) said Zmab had been sent but questioned whether it had even been used due to side effect fears: [3] and [4]

I can't but wonder about the 10/11 report saying, "Spain's Ebola patient is feeling better just hours after she received an experimental treatment, health sources said." with the headline reading "Ebola-infected Spanish nurse improving after dose of experimental drug ZMapp". Hopefully the "health sources" were not the makers of ZMapp. Gandydancer (talk) 18:54, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

thanks for this. This article currently doesn't communicate anything about the case of the spanish nurse; seems like we should keep it that way! thanks for the heads up. Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Concerns re apparent bias in this article

I have concerns. It is my impression that this article has used selective reporting of information gleaned from sources to emphasize positive information, while ignoring or downplaying anything neutral or negative. I have made several edits to attempt to reduce this bias. I wish I would have known that this article was going to be used as a DYK article, which has been used as a form of Wiki-Advertising in the past, because I would most certainly have voiced concerns at that time. Just look at the lead for this article which states that ZMapp "was credited as helping save lives". Just show me even one mediocre source for that, let alone a highly reliable medical source one would expect for such a statement. On the other hand, we have numerous sources, from the WHO, to the CDC, and right on down, saying that basic supportive care, and especially control of dehydration, will save many lives. Paul Farmer goes so far as to say that 90% of the infected could be saved with basic medical care. Can anyone really say ZMapp has shown effectiveness when most of the people in Africa that are dying can not even find a treatment center for treatment? They are dying at home, or even if they can find an open treatment center, the centers have little to offer - for instance, only 10% of Liberia is even wired for electricity and many tx centers are short on supplies and staff. MSF said some time ago that they are not able to offer their patients IV treatment, and they are known to have some of the best care available. Gandydancer (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

It is evident that you did not take the time to read the article, never mind the history of edits and comments in this talk page. User Jytdog single-handedly kept this article objective and free from the media hype. There is always room for improvement, but not for seemingly random critiques. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's please try to restrict our comments to the article rather than accusing editors of a lack of understanding the issues gained through first reading the article and the talk page before making comments (and yes, BTW, I have read the article and talk page history before making any comments). Back to my statement re a lack of RS to state in the lead that ZMapp "was credited as helping save lives". Can you offer any reliable RS to back that statement? Considering that Nigeria had a CFR of only 40%, the US has had 8 people who received adequate medical treatment and only one died, and of the nine people treated in Europe only three died, does ZMapp really show any improvement in outcome at all, or is it that appropriate medical care that patients removed from the areas where next to no medical is available? And I want to again mention Paul Farmer's statement, certainly as good as anything reported in the article so far, that 90% of patients who received proper medical care would survive. Ebola need not always kill, but the the lack of appropriate care certainly can kill, especially the ability to offer IV tx to patients that have become dehydrated to the point of life-threatening hypovolemia. Gandydancer (talk) 20:21, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

If something escaped to Jytdog, then fix it instead of bitching. Sincerely, BatteryIncluded (talk) 21:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Rather than call my comments "bitching", please note that I did make several edits to the article to correct what I considered to be misinformation. Rather than call me, in other words, a "bitch" (or perhaps you thought that I had just momentarily lost my cool?), perhaps you may have suggestions to improve the article yourself? Gandydancer (talk) 21:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Some may say that the higher survival rate in the US is due to better supportive care (and this might be true), but it is also true that every patient in the US has received either blood serum from a survivor or an experimental drug (ZMapp, TKM-Ebola, or Brincidofovir) or both. So we do not know that the experimental drugs have not made the difference. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

battery, thanks for Talking here, but would you please strike "bitching"? i have no comment on what you meant but it has been taken badly, which is enough to request this. thank you. Jytdog (talk) 09:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

more generally, let's keep this focused on the article. something did escape me, and this deletion by gandy was an improvement. thanks for that. gandy, no one reverted that change, and in general we have worked hard to keep this very neutral and clear that no one knows if Zmapp is safe and effective or not. We have had POV-pushers come through and try to push the article toward "wonder drug" and also try to load it up with reasons why it must not have worked. Neither are appropriate. We just don't know now. i tend not to pay too much attention to the lead and the statement you deleted should have been gone a long time ago. Jytdog (talk) 09:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Why is the age of the Spanish priest included but not the ages of the others? Surely I'm not the only one that assumes that his age was a factor in his death (which is likely true). On the other hand, one editor entered the fact that two of the Americans also received blood transfusions which, according to the WHO, "shows promise" - that was deleted. I've removed the priest's age. Gandydancer (talk) 16:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)