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Today we're talking about quite a controversial subject: the use of experimental drugs to treat disease.
今天，我们谈论的是一个颇具争议的话题：使用实验药物来治疗疾病。
Experimental drugs are medicines which are still being tested – they haven't yet been officially approved. And experimental drugs are a very hot topic with the recent cases of Ebola in West Africa.
实验药物是仍在测试中的药物——尚未被正式批准。在西非最近发生的埃博拉病例中，实验药物是一个非常热门的话题。
Ebola is caused by a virus for which there is no cure yet, and the mortality rate is high. The mortality rate is the proportion of people in a particular group who actually die of the disease.
埃博拉病毒目前还没有特效药，死亡率很高。死亡率是特定人群中实际死于该疾病的人口比例。
Hundreds of people have been infected in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and over half have died.
在几内亚、利比里亚和塞拉利昂有数百人感染埃博拉病毒，超过一半的病例最终死亡。
So – the World Health Organisation decided to allow the use of experimental drugs on people with the virus.
因此，世界卫生组织决定允许在感染该病毒的人体身上使用实验药物。
This is something very risky. The drug might cause unexpected changes in the body and make the patient worse. These are what we call side effects.
这是非常冒险的。因为药物可能会导致人体产生意外变化，使患者病情恶化。这些就是我们所说的副作用。
The virus Ebola got its name after a river in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
埃博拉病毒以刚果民主共和国北部的一条河流命名。
The World Health Organisation (the WHO) announced they would allow the use of these drugs on humans, but… only under certain conditions.
世界卫生组织宣布，他们将允许在人类身上使用这些药物，但是……仅在某些特定条件下。
And that's why if you are infected with the virus you have to sign a waiver.
因此，如果感染了病毒，你必须签署豁免书。
A waiver. This is a formal document in which the person says they've given up a right or claim – in this case, the right to take others to court.
豁免书是一份正式文件，当事人说他们已经放弃了一项权利或要求，在此例中就是将他人告上法庭的权利。
So - people who are infected with Ebola can talk to a doctor, sign this document, this waiver, and get the medicine…
因此，感染了埃博拉病毒的人可以与医生交谈，签署豁免文件，获得药物……
Well, not exactly – because not everyone gets it. It's still experimental – and not much of it has been produced so there might not be enough for all who need it.
也没有这么简单，因为不是每个人都能得到它。因为药物仍处于实验阶段，并没有生产太多，因此对于所有需要它的人来说可能还不够。
So do you give it to the sickest who are likely to die, or to those not so sick who might recover with the help of the drug?
那么，是否该将药物给那些濒临死亡的最严重患者，还是那些可能在药物帮助下康复的病情较轻的患者呢？
It's a big dilemma. A dilemma is a situation in which a choice has to be made between different things and one is not much better than the other.
这是一个很大的难题。难题意味着你必须在不同事物之间做出选择，而其中一项并没有比另一项好得多。
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发表于 2020-6-27 10:29:51
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