On Friday, Take Two discusses why it has taken so long for the experimental Ebola vaccine ZMapp to make its way through bureaucratic red tape. We'll also look at ESPN's punishment of longtime writer Bill Simmons, why food allergies are on the rise and much more.
SoCal expert returns from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone
The United Nations held an emergency session Thursday on the Ebola virus — which has so far killed nearly 3,000 people in West Africa. U.S. health officials have warned if the outbreak isn't contained soon, the number of people infected could explode to more 1 million by mid-January.
President Barack Obama spoke at the U.N. assembly, and he stressed that Ebola poses a risk to more than just health. He called it a growing threat to regional and global security, adding that epidemic could cause a humanitarian catastrophe across the entire region if the virus isn't stopped.
Dr. Suzanne Donovan knows first-hand how dire the situation is. She is a medical director of Infection Control and an infectious diseases specialist at Olive View UCLA Medical Center. She just returned to the U.S. after a month-long stint in Sierra Leone, where she treated Ebola patients and trained those caring for them.
Staff on the ground is completely overwhelmed, Dr. Donovan said. At one of the Ebola treatment facilities she visited, there were very few nurses left to treat patients.
"Most of the senior staff had died over the past few months, so you had very, very young nurses who had virtually no mentorship in how to approach this outbreak," she said.
Doctors Without Borders president says action, not words, are needed in Ebola crisis
The U.S. and other countries have pledged to help in the Ebola crisis. But, with infection rates doubling every three weeks, can international aid come soon enough?
"Right now there's a huge momentum in terms of nations doing pledges for Ebola. We've seen in many other crises that people pledge, but don't deliver," says Dr. Joanne Liu is the International President of Doctors without Borders and she addressed this meeting at the UN yesterday.
"My key message is thank you very much for the pledges; thank you very much for the UN Security Council resolution, but now this needs to translate into real action on the field if we want to make a difference," says Dr. Liu, adding that a blank check is not enough.
There's not enough people on the ground to respond to epidemic that has left thousands of people dead, she said.
Why it took so long for the FDA to approve Ebola vaccine
When two American medical workers contracted Ebola in Liberia in July, they were rushed doses of an experimental drug called ZMapp.
The two were flown back to the U.S. where they were treated successfully at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Both went on to make a full recovery, but many others have not been so fortunate. The development of this promising drug began years ago, but it was delayed by government bureaucracy.
"This is a government sponsored medication, or therapy, but the problem and where it's gotten hung up is, about four years, the idea got to the point where it needs to be turned into an approved drug," says Brendan Greelay, who investigated the FDA process for this drug for Bloomberg Businessweek.
It didn't work.
"The U.S. government has to be a pharmaceutical company. There are certain treatments that don't really have a market," Greelay says. "If you're looking at Viagra or Lipitor, there's a market. People will buy that. Nobody is going to buy a therapy for Ebola. Nobody needs it until, all of a sudden, everybody needs it."
ZMapp was picked up by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), an agency part of the Pentagon.
"DTRA had a problem, which is they have a very slow contracting department... within the Pentagon, which is slow to begin with," Greelay said. "The idea got hung up in the contracting department, and it took two years to dot all the i's and cross all the t's to actually get the check cut."
Greelay admitted that it's not usual for the FDA to take a long time approving new drugs to get on the market.
The Pentagon and Health and Human Services wanted the FDA to give ZMapp a designation for emergency use, Greelay said, which means "you don't need to get full commercial approval."
"It just means you tested for safety in humans — not that it works, just that it doesn't have terrible side affects we need to know about," Greelay says. "That compresses the process. It should... There's no guarantee that if we hadn't lost this time in the contracting process that we would have a stockpile of ZMapp right now."
Read the full story: How the U.S. Screwed Up in the Fight Against Ebola
The Flashback: Great Britain votes on airstrikes, Eric Holder steps down, Ferguson's chief of police apologizes
Joining us in our weekly look-back at the week in news is
from Slate and
, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
It's the third day of U.S. led strikes in Syria, and in London, British lawmakers have just decided to join the fight not in Syria, but in Iraq...why is Parliament ok with joining the fight in Iraq...but not Syria?
This week Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday that he would be stepping down. Here'sPresident Obama making the official announcement yesterday.
What do you think Holder will be most remembered for?
Holder travelled to Ferguson, Missouri after unarmed teenager Michael Brown was killed by police and Holder and spoke to Brown's family. The AG also opened up two federal investigations into the shootings. Will those investigation will lose steam now that Holder is leaving?
And this week Ferguson's chief of police Thomas Jackson issued a videotaped apology to Brown's family and to the protestors.
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson's Urgent Announcement from Devin James Group on Vimeo.
We'll find out what could be behind the apology, and if it was received well by residents.
New social network Ello is the 'anti-Facebook'
A new social network called Ello has caught the internet by storm.
It was originally created in response to frustration from the LGBT community that Facebook required people to use their real name instead of, for example, their drag queen name.
"It's an ad-free, design-focused, social network that promises they're never going to mine and sell your data to third-party advertisers," says Gizmodo writer Leslie Horn. "It's hipster-informed."
Instead of just having one set of friends like Facebook, Ello separates friends from what it calls "noise."
"Friends are your actual friends and 'noise' would be maybe people you don't not want to friend, but you're not interested in what they have to say," says Horn.
And, it's been getting a lot of attention, Horn says.
"The reason maybe you would join it is out of curiosity, out being fed up with Facebook, not want to see ads, being sick of a lot of the noise on Facebook... so you want to try something different," Horn says. "However, this is not the first time we've seen a new social network try to take on Facebook or take on Twitter."
Horn says she doesn't see Ello as more than a passing trend.
Canadian farmers bank on wasabi, 'hardest plant to grow'
If you've ever eaten at a sushi restaurant, then chances are you probably had an undesirable experience with a staple to the cuisine: wasabi.
This fiery, mustard-like condiment comes from a plant which grows along the beds of streams in mountain river valleys in Japan. Turns out though, it's not just grown in Japan.
At $160 a kilogram, wasabi is one of the most lucrative crops in the world, as the BBC's Kim Gittleson discovered in Vancouver. That's why farmers in Canada are hoping for a big payday from wasabi too.
Read the full story: Wasabi: Why invest in 'the hardest plant to grow'?
The Pixies release new album after 23 years
Nearly 30 years ago, four musicians in Boston Massachusetts came together and formed a band called The Pixies. Their sound was rough and edgy and many have called the band a pivotal force in the world of alternative rock.
In 1991 they released the album Trompe Le Monde, which was adored by critics and fans alike, but there was no follow-up... until now.
"Indie Cindy" is the Pixies's new studio album and they'll soon take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl.
Guitarist Joey Santiago and Drummer David Lovering join Alex in the studio to talk about their latest work.
Building a better way to poll Asian-Americans
When it comes to people immigrating to California, twice as many hail from Asia than Latin America.
That's a lot of new voters. But, the problem facing pollsters is that some of those Asian ethnic groups can be closed off to outsiders, making it hard to know where they stand on statewide issues.
Karthick Ramakrishnan is a political science professor at UC-Riverside and director of the National Asian American Survey. He's currently working to find better ways to survey this population on political issues.
US to pay $554 million to Navajo Nation in historic settlement
The U.S. Government has agreed to pay the Navajo Nation more than half a billion dollars to settle claims that it mismanaged the tribe's funds and natural resources for decades.
The $554-million settlement agreement is the largest one ever reached with a single Native American tribe.
Carrie Jung, a reporter with KJZZ in Phoenix, joins Take Two for more on the landmark settlement.
A dam of controversies
Along the Colorado River are more than a dozen dams that provide electricity and drinking water to millions of people across the western United States. This month marks the 50th anniversary of one of them: the Glen Canyon Dam.
Its history is not without controversy, reports Laurel Morales from the Fronteras Desk.
Read the full story: Glen Canyon Dam Turns 50
ESPN suspends Bill Simmons after criticizing NFL commissioner
Normally a company suspending an employee for insubordination wouldn't create a trending topic on Twitter. But, when the company is ESPN, the employee is Bill Simmons and the topic is the NFL: Cue the firestorm.
Simmons is a popular columnist at ESPN and also runs Grantland. ESPN suspended Simmons after calling NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a "liar" on his podcast.
The suspension has led to a firestorm of criticism of social media and a Twitter hashtag: #FreeSimmons
Richard Deitsch, who covers sports media for Sports Illustrated, joins Take Two for more on the story.
People won't pay for the right to recline, but they will accept gifts
There are some things you can count on. Sure, there's death and taxes, but on an airplane you can trust there will be little space to stretch your legs (if you're in coach).
That fact has led a few people to punch their fellow passengers over the four inches they have.
"Fistfights over the right to recline caused three flights to be diverted and forced to make unscheduled landings in a two-week period," write Christopher Buccafusco and Chris Sprigman in an article for Slate.
Economics could provide some kind of solution to the problem. Buccafusco is an associate professor at the IIT Chicago Kent College of Law and has been studying the economics of reclining seats.
"We wanted to see what could actually get people to make transactions that would improve their welfare, make each person better off in these kinds of cases, so we encouraged them to barter," says Buccafusco.
The question: Would you offer or accept $8 for the right to recline? The answer was no.
"Instead, if you offer them a drink or a snack, the percentage of people who would be willing to accept such an offer went way up," Buccafusco says. "So, it seems like there's an opportunity here for people to be both polite to one another and increase welfare."
Read the full story: Who Deserves Those 4 Inches of Airplane Seat Space?
Beer Week isn't over yet — and other cheap things to do this weekend
Put down your computer and close that tablet. We're making the most of our precious time off with free art, amazing food and delicious beer.
KPCC’s social media producer Kristen Lepore joins us to share her picks for fun and cheap events happening around SoCal over the next couple days.
For a full list of weekend events, click here.
Sears project stirs gentrification talk in Boyle Heights
Since the 1920s, the Sears Roebuck building has sparkled as a Boyle Heights landmark — 11 stories tall. Several football fields wide. An Art Deco treasure that draws tourists.
But inside, there isn't much to see. Sears shut down what was one of its biggest distribution centers two decades ago when its mail order business dried up, reports KPCC's Josie Huang. A retail store still operates on the ground floor, but the rest of the building is gutted and covered in grit.
Developer Ulisses Sanchez is unfazed. "I just see a lot of endless opportunity," he said.
Read the full story: Sears project stirs gentrification talk in Boyle Heights
Musician Eef Barzelay, playing in a living room near you
These days, it's hard for a working musician to get by. People don't buy albums the way they once did, and it's hard to make money through live performances unless you're a big name act.
Musician Eef Barzelay, formerly of the band Clem Snide, is touring and playing in home living rooms. He joins Take Two to talk about how the idea got started and what inspires his music these days.
Upcoming shows in the L.A. area: