DURHAM -- Using an untested drug against Ebola "could prove disastrous" according to Dr. Phillip Rosoff, a professor of pediatrics and medicine, who is also director of the Clinical Ethics Program at Duke University. Rosoff says desperation often gives rise to ill-considered choices, both on the part of doctors and others caring for the patients themselves.

Rosoff added, "When you hold out the hope of a treatment, irrespective in how that hope is couched with all sorts of asterisks and caveats, it is likely to prove irresistible to patients and families who are frantic for wanting any chance whatsoever."

According to Dr. Rosoff, extra caution and thought must be given to using experimental and possibly dangerous treatments in our population.