Anthony Harrelson: Examining Antihypertensive Drugs

Anthony Harrelson has been leading his team of professionals at White Oaks Industrial Inc., to finding better ways to combat HIV and Ebola. He has been working diligently to develop drugs to combat these diseases because he has looked to the past and seen how effective these treatments can be. Just by looking into the history of humanity, you can see the impact that newly developed drugs have had on the population. One of the most impactful drugs were ones that were designed to battle things like hypertension. Hypertension is a big medical flag, one that increases your risk of having health issues such as heart failure, stroke, renal disease, coronary artery disease, and Peripheral arterial disease. It is also one of the highest indicators of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in industrialized countries. In fact, before the 1940s, nearly 23% of the deaths occurring in people over the age of fifty could be linked to hypertension. Because hypertension was having such a devastating effect on the population, scientists, doctors, and chemists were all scrambling to find a way to combat it quickly and effectively.

The earliest developments for treating hypertension would include using an ammonium ion agent that would block neural receptors in the sympathetic nervous system. However, this compound would never see use, as it had many detrimental side-effects and had to be administered through injection only, a big no-no at the time. It was not until around the 1950s that researchers would discover a way to orally administer a compound that would combat hypertension. The only real drawback of this new method was that it began to be less and less effective over time as the body adapted to it. This would cause a continued hunt for a better alternative.

This better method would come with the discovery and development of chlorothiazide, which is still today used to combat hypertension. The application of this drug was associated with a massive decline in the mortality rates of people who were known to have hypertension. Its effects were so ubiquitous, that it became recognized by a Public health Lasker Award for saving innumerable amounts of lives.

Anthony Harrelson looks to the past and examples like chlorothiazide when he needs inspiration for developing his own drugs. If he is successful, he will be able to help combat and possibly even cure both HIV and Ebola. Only time will tell if he is capable of pulling off this ambitious goal.

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