Ebola vaccine could be ready in months, yet remain unavailable to the public

“Scientists at Oxford University are developing a new vaccine that could be ready for clinical trials within two to three months to help tackle the Ebola emergency,” reports the BBC:

The outbreak, centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has resulted in 750 suspected cases and 177 deaths. The rare species of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo, for which there is no proven vaccine, kills around a third of those infected. There are no guarantees the vaccine will prove effective and it will take animal research and trials on people to know if it will be. But scientists say they are working urgently in case the outbreak spirals and their experimental vaccine is needed. The risk from the current Ebola outbreak has now been upgraded from “high” to “very high” in the Democratic Republic of Congo, by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Of course, the fact that the vaccine could be ready in a few months does not mean it will be available in that period. The coronavirus vaccine was delayed until after the 2020 election — probably resulting in Donald Trump losing an election he otherwise would have won — because of a desire for racial diversity in clinical trials. In September 2020, Moderna’s CEO announced the company would slow trial enrollment to ensure at least 37% of participants were from minority communities, citing that diversity mattered more than speed. FDA bureaucrats issued recommendations in June 2020 strongly encouraging the enrollment of populations most affected by the virus, specifically racial and ethnic minorities. They did this even though professors like David Bernstein pointed out that the racial classifications used to promote “diversity” in clinical trials were arbitrary and scientifically useless.

A single obstructionist official can cause the deaths of thousands of people by denying them access to a life-saving drug.

At least a hundred thousand people died waiting years for the FDA to approve beta blockers in the 20th Century. One of the FDA officials involved in delaying their approval was John Nestor. Nestor was notorious for following rules in ways designed to deliberately delay drug approvals and other people, such as his habit of deliberately driving slowly in the fast lane on highways in order to slow down other motorists.

Many people die waiting for the FDA to approve medical tests and life-saving drugs. The FDA can be rather slow. The FDA didn’t approve a home test for HIV until 24 years after it first received an application. According to an FDA advisory committee, the test held “the potential to prevent the transmission of more than 4,000 new HIV infections in its first year of use alone.” That means thousands of people likely got infected with AIDS as a result of the delay in approving it. As Roger Parloff noted in Fortune, the FDA’s delay in approving the home HIV test was a “scandal.” It caused the deaths of thousands of people.