Ebola - The Bleeding Edge. II

Can You believe it?
                           With over a thousand deaths from this terrible disease, there is still some debate about making drugs such a Zmapp available to the afflicted.  Of course it is not clear how effective these drugs may be, if they are effective at all, nor what unexpected side effects may become apparent, but preliminary tests at least look promising and if desperately ill people prefer to take the risk as against no treatment,  there is no treatment other than supportive care, then that should be their choice.  (Always presuming there is sufficient vaccine to offer it.)   When penicillin became available clinical trials with endless equivocal statistical analysis to see if it was effective were not necessary.   The patients who were given the drug recovered rapidly while many of those who didn't get it died.  Simple. Nobody thought of legalities.  For God's sake, give  the patients the Zmapp (or whatever) if knowing the situation they request it.
                            Unfortunately, the medico-legal lottery and the goldmine the legal profession has tapped into has changed the face of medicine (or as it is called these days - The Health Care Industry.) forever..  Because of the greed of some of the public, encouraged by many in the legal profession, physicians and those associated with  the provision of health care have been forced to consider the legal implications of any action, no matter how well planned or how appropriate,should things not go as planned.  Drug companies likewise.    There is an expectation by the self-centred "ME" generation that everything better work out the way I want - or somebody is  going to pay.  An adversarial attitude has developed that I and most of the physicians of my era never experienced.  I was never sued or even threatened with a suit.  Perhaps that's because my patients thought I  cared about them - and I did.  We were on the same side.   Now physicians and other health care personnel are influenced in their approach to  help by the consequences of their efforts resulting in failure with potentially disastrous consequences.
                            Retirement, after fifty-five years is much easier to take than I anticipated .  And it ain't because I'm getting old and tired!!