Annas: The most important point to make about Ebola drugs is that the Ebola epidemic will not be solved by any existing drug, no matter how effective. The Ebola epidemic is a public health disaster that requires a heavy-duty public health response, complete with the establishment and maintenance of clean, well-supplied, and professionally staffed clinics to care for patients with the disease, and a clear plan to identify and monitor those they have been in close contact with for symptoms of the disease.
The firestorm of comments about the experimental drugs in development, and giving them to the two Americans, taps deep into both our faith in technological solutions to health problems, and into our fear that medical care will always be made available to the privileged in society first, and to the poor last, if at all. Nonetheless, there are legal and ethical concerns about how experimental drugs should be deployed in the midst of a public health emergency.