#rainingskye

Maaayyybe! Or, lava-bending is just a special ability for earth benders, just like how lightning-bending is to fire benders. Bolin just has the ability to control earth that's been heated by friction. 

paper heart (╥﹏╥) aka my heart is all squished 'cause your rude ass broke it smh

(Aaahhh! Thank you! That’s so inspiring for me to hear! I will try my best to be a good role model :) Thank you so much!)

The drug in discussion is ZMapp. It is not a vaccine, and is only used for treatment after one becomes infected with Ebola. However, it’s still in its very early experimental stages. It hasn’t even been tested in humans yet. For all scientists know, it could kill the infected person. 

ZMapp was given to the 2 American patients as a last ditch effort. The patients knew the risks, and took the gamble. Thankfully, they are now recovering. 

However, since the drug is still in its experimental stages, there is a limited number of doses available (because why would you mass produce something that might not work?). This is the logistical reason why Africa isn’t receiving the drug right now. It would take several months to mass manufacture the drug, and by that time, the Ebola outbreak might have cleared itself out already. (Ebola’s strength is its weakness. Since the virus kills so quickly, it gets to a point where the patients die before the virus can find a new host. That’s why the best thing to do during an outbreak right now is to quarantine the infected.) And yeah sure, we’ll have the drug ready for the next outbreak, but it’s a drug that hasn’t been tested in humans yet! Scientists can also bring the drugs to Africa and do the clinical trials there, but that brings us back to the low-doses-situation.

There’s also the ethical question. 

Since the risks aren’t known for ZMapp yet, is it right for the US to give another country a drug that could potentially kill or permanently disable patients? Sure, the drug seems to be working for the American patients, but what if tomorrow they suddenly become paralyzed for life, or all their white blood cells die, or they start developing a really aggressive form of cancer? The US reaaallly doesn’t want to be responsible for that in another country, because other things aside, that’s kind of a terrible thing to do to people. 

It’s kind of a catch-22. Send like 5 doses of the drug or however much the lab has, maybe save lives, but unknown dangerous risks? Or don’t send drug, let Ebola take its course, and 70% of the victims will die? There’s no good option here.