WEBVTT - Blended Mouse Brains 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:15.165 School of Humans. Fair warning, this episode starts with diarrhea. Today, 0:00:15.165 --> 0:00:17.005 we're going to hear from someone with the rare distinction 0:00:17.125 --> 0:00:19.765 of having a vaccine named after them because it's made 0:00:19.805 --> 0:00:23.245 from their cells. We'll also speak with a vaccine historian 0:00:23.405 --> 0:00:25.925 who also happens to be a vaccine inventor, and who 0:00:26.045 --> 0:00:28.165 also happens to have written a book about the world's 0:00:28.205 --> 0:00:31.965 greatest vaccine maker. From My Heart Radio and School of Humans, 0:00:32.005 --> 0:00:38.245 I'm Sean Revived and this is long shot. Just saying 0:00:38.445 --> 0:00:42.045 diarrhea or anything related to the butt gets a laugh 0:00:42.085 --> 0:00:45.485 from me or by two year old, but it's a killer. 0:00:46.045 --> 0:00:48.405 Hundreds of thousands of kids die from it every year. 0:00:50.125 --> 0:00:53.045 There's a really serious thing that causes diarrhea, and it's 0:00:53.085 --> 0:00:57.285 called rhodavirus. Rhodavirus can give infants and young kids nausea 0:00:57.325 --> 0:01:00.845 and fever. Can also give them days of watery diarrhea, 0:01:01.045 --> 0:01:06.005 and if those kids can't get rehydrated, they'll die. Almost 0:01:06.005 --> 0:01:09.125 every kid in the world under five gets rhodavirus at 0:01:09.125 --> 0:01:14.005 some point. It's everywhere. The question is how do you 0:01:14.045 --> 0:01:18.605 stop it. Historically, the answer has been a shit ton 0:01:18.685 --> 0:01:22.365 of research, years of trial and error, hits and missus 0:01:23.765 --> 0:01:26.405 in the nineties, a team at the US National Institutes 0:01:26.445 --> 0:01:29.325 of Health merged a human rhodavirus strain with a monkey 0:01:29.365 --> 0:01:33.045 rhodavirus strain to create a single vaccine called Rhoda Shield. 0:01:33.885 --> 0:01:36.525 It did clinical trials in a few countries. Those went 0:01:36.685 --> 0:01:40.365 really well. The FDA approved Rhoda Shield and the CDC 0:01:40.525 --> 0:01:43.645 recommended it for every infant born in the US. This 0:01:43.725 --> 0:01:48.805 was in August nineteen ninety eight. Over the next few months, 0:01:48.925 --> 0:01:51.445 hundreds of thousands of American infants got at least one 0:01:51.485 --> 0:01:54.005 dose of Rhoda Shield, and it looked like we finally 0:01:54.045 --> 0:01:55.765 had a tool to take on this virus that was 0:01:55.845 --> 0:01:58.325 killing poor children all around the world. It was a 0:01:58.405 --> 0:02:03.005 huge deal. But then in late nineteen ninety nine, the 0:02:03.085 --> 0:02:06.925 CDC withdrew its recommendation of the vaccine. Rhoda Shield had 0:02:06.965 --> 0:02:10.605 only been used for about nine months. There was no 0:02:10.685 --> 0:02:14.125 question that the vaccine was effective in stopping rhodavirus, but 0:02:14.245 --> 0:02:16.325 some children who got Rhoda Shield were struck with a 0:02:16.445 --> 0:02:20.685 rare and dangerous condition called into susception. It's an intestinal 0:02:20.725 --> 0:02:23.565 disorder that can be fatal in infants if not treated. 0:02:24.925 --> 0:02:28.325 There weren't many cases, just a dozen at first, but 0:02:28.405 --> 0:02:30.965 that was higher than expected based on the clinical trials, 0:02:31.285 --> 0:02:35.405 and a deeper investigation found even more cases. Still, the 0:02:35.485 --> 0:02:38.045 risk of getting sick or dying from rhodavirus was far 0:02:38.125 --> 0:02:42.005 greater than the risks of into susception. But now American 0:02:42.085 --> 0:02:47.285 children couldn't even get Rhoda Shield. Even worse, when the 0:02:47.285 --> 0:02:51.125 CDC withdrew its recommendation, developing countries across the globe also 0:02:51.205 --> 0:02:54.565 didn't want to use Rhoda Shield. A vaccine that could 0:02:54.605 --> 0:02:59.125 save two thousand lives per day, mostly poor children's lives, 0:02:59.165 --> 0:03:05.165 just stopped being used, and for seven years rhodavirus vaccines disappeared. 0:03:09.765 --> 0:03:12.165 When we talk about rhodavirus, one of the names you 0:03:12.165 --> 0:03:14.725 have to know is Paul Offitt. True. I think any 0:03:14.765 --> 0:03:17.085 fan of professional roller Derby knows who I am. I'm 0:03:17.085 --> 0:03:19.885 just kidding, Yeah, I am Paul Offitt. I'm the director 0:03:19.885 --> 0:03:22.445 of the vaccin Education Center of Children's Hospital Philadelphia and 0:03:22.485 --> 0:03:25.365 a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School 0:03:25.365 --> 0:03:29.725 of Medicine. Paul wears many hats, doctor, researcher, advocate, writer. 0:03:30.405 --> 0:03:34.205 Maybe that's why he talks so damn fast. You could 0:03:34.205 --> 0:03:36.445 say the trajectory of his life was set when he 0:03:36.485 --> 0:03:39.685 was just five years old. Five years was rough year 0:03:39.765 --> 0:03:42.965 for me. I actually inadvertently cut off the tip of 0:03:43.005 --> 0:03:45.045 my finger, which caused me to go to the hospital. 0:03:45.685 --> 0:03:50.165 And I also ruptured my spleen after falling from a height. 0:03:50.245 --> 0:03:52.485 And actually, frankly, the pediatritician who took care of me 0:03:52.605 --> 0:03:54.365 saved my life. I mean he was willing to come 0:03:54.405 --> 0:03:57.245 there that night to examine me. I said there is 0:03:57.285 --> 0:04:00.285 no time and put me in his car to drive 0:04:00.325 --> 0:04:03.125 me to the hospital to perform an emergency surgery was 0:04:03.205 --> 0:04:05.525 performed where a court and a half of blood was 0:04:05.885 --> 0:04:09.445 taken out of my abdomens. And I also was born 0:04:09.485 --> 0:04:12.045 with club feet. My feet were casted as a child, 0:04:12.085 --> 0:04:15.125 and then invertently or unfortunately, a decision was made to 0:04:15.165 --> 0:04:17.405 operate on my foot, which should never have been done. 0:04:17.405 --> 0:04:20.405 I mean, the club foot surgery wasn't perfected till the 0:04:20.405 --> 0:04:22.885 mid nineties. This was the mid fifties, so we still 0:04:22.925 --> 0:04:25.445 forty years to go before we had perfected that operation, 0:04:25.885 --> 0:04:27.885 and so it was botched. Because it couldn't help it 0:04:27.925 --> 0:04:30.125 be botched. There was no way to do that surgery. Then, 0:04:30.685 --> 0:04:33.205 after the surgery went bad, five year old Paul ended 0:04:33.285 --> 0:04:36.365 up in a chronic care facility in Baltimore. Back then 0:04:36.405 --> 0:04:39.005 it was called the James Lawrence Current In Hospital and 0:04:39.085 --> 0:04:43.365 Industrial School of Maryland for Crippled Children. So I was 0:04:43.405 --> 0:04:47.405 in that war that chronic care facility for about six 0:04:47.565 --> 0:04:49.845 to eight weeks. But that was a poly award. I mean, 0:04:49.925 --> 0:04:52.645 chronic care facilities in the mid nineteen fifties were poly awards. 0:04:53.405 --> 0:04:55.605 His mother was sick and his father was always on 0:04:55.605 --> 0:04:58.405 the road for his work as a shirt salesman. So 0:04:58.525 --> 0:05:01.845 Paul spent that time when the poly award doing nothing. 0:05:03.005 --> 0:05:06.045 And I just remember sitting in that bed looking out 0:05:06.045 --> 0:05:08.645 the window which looked out onto the front door of 0:05:08.645 --> 0:05:12.045 that hospital, just waiting for somebody to come rescue me. 0:05:12.325 --> 0:05:14.365 You know, it's not like there were there was TVs there, 0:05:14.445 --> 0:05:17.245 there weren't iPads, there weren't play dogs or you know, 0:05:17.365 --> 0:05:20.525 pet therapy dogs and stuff. So you were just lying 0:05:20.565 --> 0:05:22.845 there for all day and it was it was grim, 0:05:22.845 --> 0:05:25.725 and I just remember all seeing those children as vulnerable, 0:05:25.805 --> 0:05:28.285 helpless and alone, and I think, I think that no 0:05:28.405 --> 0:05:33.965 doubt motivated me to go into pediatrics. Paul decided to 0:05:33.965 --> 0:05:38.205 become a pediatrician. He went to med school, started doing research, 0:05:38.725 --> 0:05:41.405 and then during his residency. Well, I was a resident, 0:05:41.405 --> 0:05:44.445 I saw a child die rodavirus, so it's um that 0:05:44.605 --> 0:05:47.565 was certainly another sort of motivator. He saw a child 0:05:47.685 --> 0:05:50.405 die of rhodavirus, so he started working on a way 0:05:50.405 --> 0:05:53.165 to stop it. Every year in the United States, before 0:05:53.205 --> 0:05:56.365 there was a roadavirus vaccine, there would be about seventy 0:05:56.365 --> 0:05:59.405 five thousand children that would be hospitalized with rhodavirus. Every year. 0:05:59.445 --> 0:06:01.605 There would be about sixty children would die of rotavirus. 0:06:01.685 --> 0:06:04.085 Everyone in this country would get rotavirus by the time 0:06:04.085 --> 0:06:06.685 at five they were five. It didn't matter the level 0:06:06.725 --> 0:06:08.765 of sanitation in the home or the label level of 0:06:09.285 --> 0:06:12.045 hygiene in the country. It didn't matter. Everybody was infected 0:06:12.165 --> 0:06:16.085 with that virus by age five. The virus kills two 0:06:16.125 --> 0:06:21.965 thousand children a day in the world. In the early eighties, 0:06:22.125 --> 0:06:24.125 Paul was part of a team that created a rotavirus 0:06:24.205 --> 0:06:27.365 vaccine with a cow strain, kind of like how Edward 0:06:27.445 --> 0:06:30.445 Jenner used cowpox to create a vaccine for smallpox two 0:06:30.525 --> 0:06:35.565 hundred years earlier. But after multiple trials, Paul's rotavirus vaccine 0:06:35.605 --> 0:06:39.845 didn't work well enough, and they shelved it. Over the 0:06:39.845 --> 0:06:44.205 next twenty six years, he continued working on a rotavirus vaccine, 0:06:44.565 --> 0:06:47.765 a competitor to Rhoda shield. It took ten years to 0:06:47.805 --> 0:06:50.405 do the research to figure out what parts of the 0:06:50.485 --> 0:06:53.205 virus made you sick, would parts of the virus induce 0:06:53.325 --> 0:06:56.205 immune ten years to mix and match, test and retest 0:06:56.245 --> 0:06:59.765 different rotavirus strains from humans and cows to narrow down 0:06:59.805 --> 0:07:02.925 which strains would induce strong immune responses without making a 0:07:03.005 --> 0:07:06.005 child sick. Paul and his team took a recipe to 0:07:06.005 --> 0:07:09.165 a few pharmaceutical companies to help pay to continue the 0:07:09.245 --> 0:07:11.565 research and test it. And it was a sixteen year 0:07:11.685 --> 0:07:15.325 research of development effort, meaning proved that each of those 0:07:15.325 --> 0:07:17.365 strange needed to be in there, proved that you had 0:07:17.405 --> 0:07:19.405 not too much or too little of each of those strains, 0:07:19.405 --> 0:07:22.005 have the right buffering agents through right stabilizing agent through 0:07:22.045 --> 0:07:25.085 right file to do all of that work, then it 0:07:25.125 --> 0:07:28.725 was phase one, Phase two, Phase three trials progressively larger 0:07:28.765 --> 0:07:30.925 and larger studies to prove that the vaccine is safe 0:07:30.925 --> 0:07:34.165 and effective. That's sixteen more years, and it ended in 0:07:34.365 --> 0:07:37.045 a so called phase three trial, a prospect the placebo 0:07:37.125 --> 0:07:40.245 controlled the eleven country four year, three hundred and fifty 0:07:40.245 --> 0:07:42.725 million dollars trial to prove that the vaccine worked and 0:07:42.805 --> 0:07:46.365 was safe twenty six years. The vaccine that resulted from 0:07:46.405 --> 0:07:49.725 those twenty six years is called Rhodotech. It's owned by 0:07:49.725 --> 0:07:53.725 the pharmaceutical giant Murk. The Phase three trial for Rhodotech 0:07:53.885 --> 0:07:56.445 that Paul mentioned was the biggest clinical trial in the 0:07:56.525 --> 0:08:01.565 history of vaccine development or any drug development. They tested 0:08:01.565 --> 0:08:04.605 the vaccine in eleven countries on three continents and in 0:08:04.725 --> 0:08:09.285 nearly seventy thousand infants. In January two thousand and six, 0:08:09.525 --> 0:08:12.805 they published the results. The vaccines seemed to cause no 0:08:12.845 --> 0:08:17.845 additional risk of intosusception that rare intestinal disorder. Also, the 0:08:17.925 --> 0:08:22.045 vaccine worked and worked really well. It cut hospitalizations and 0:08:22.405 --> 0:08:26.925 r visits from rhodavirus by ninety five percent. A month later, 0:08:27.125 --> 0:08:30.565 both the CDC and FDA gave Rhototec the thumbs up. 0:08:30.925 --> 0:08:33.405 So the figure maybe at least three million children every 0:08:33.445 --> 0:08:36.885 year since two thousand and six, so certainly tens of millions, 0:08:36.885 --> 0:08:38.765 and in the world, hundreds of millions of children have 0:08:38.805 --> 0:08:42.005 received this vaccine, so it's not just in the US 0:08:42.085 --> 0:08:44.445 of getting it. All over the world, that's right. More 0:08:44.445 --> 0:08:49.205 than a hundred countries have licensed that product. Rhodavirus vaccine 0:08:49.245 --> 0:08:51.085 is one of more than a dozen vaccines that the 0:08:51.125 --> 0:08:54.485 CDC recommends for every American kid. And what about the 0:08:54.485 --> 0:08:57.725 other thirteen? Where did they come from? Believe it or not, 0:08:58.405 --> 0:09:05.685 most of them were made by one man. It was 0:09:05.725 --> 0:09:08.365 about one o'clock in the morning when Jeryl Lynn Hilleman 0:09:08.485 --> 0:09:11.805 woke up with a sore throat. She was five years old. 0:09:12.325 --> 0:09:15.045 You know. March nineteen sixty three was when I got MOMPS. 0:09:15.205 --> 0:09:18.605 And I do remember it, maybe because throughout my life 0:09:18.605 --> 0:09:20.965 it was made to be so important. But it was 0:09:21.085 --> 0:09:22.925 one of those moments where you wake up in the 0:09:22.925 --> 0:09:24.325 middle of the night and you go to your parents' 0:09:24.405 --> 0:09:27.605 room because you feel sick, and that's not really a 0:09:27.645 --> 0:09:30.645 big deal. But I remember waking Dad up and saying 0:09:30.685 --> 0:09:33.605 I feel sick, describing what was going on. He instantly 0:09:33.645 --> 0:09:35.965 turns on the light and grabs the Murk Manual. And 0:09:35.965 --> 0:09:39.405 the Murk Manual was a very large book, about three 0:09:39.445 --> 0:09:42.485 inches thick. It was kind of back then what Google 0:09:42.605 --> 0:09:46.165 is today. Anything you want to look up about disease, symptoms, treatments, 0:09:46.165 --> 0:09:49.485 and so forth was in the Murk Manual. So he 0:09:49.525 --> 0:09:51.925 looks it up and he's reading about MOMPS. Because he 0:09:52.005 --> 0:09:55.565 instantly suspects I had moms, and that was of course 0:09:55.845 --> 0:09:58.805 very exciting to him because he was working very hard 0:09:59.125 --> 0:10:03.285 to develop a vaccine. My name is Jerry Hilliman, also 0:10:03.325 --> 0:10:08.685 known as Jerald Lynn Hilleman, and I live in Palo Alto, California, 0:10:08.765 --> 0:10:13.285 and I am the daughter of Maurice Hilleman, who was 0:10:13.325 --> 0:10:16.805 a wonderful man but also particularly known for his work 0:10:16.885 --> 0:10:22.085 developing I think about forty vaccines. Gerlin's father, Maurice Hilleman, 0:10:22.445 --> 0:10:26.285 did develop more than forty vaccines. He's the greatest vaccine 0:10:26.325 --> 0:10:29.565 inventor in history. He played a part in where single 0:10:29.605 --> 0:10:33.845 handedly developed most of the vaccines that we get today, measles, rubella, 0:10:33.885 --> 0:10:38.405 hepatitis A, heppatitis B, Meninjacoccus hib strepped Aococcus, chickenpox. He 0:10:38.525 --> 0:10:43.325 made them all. Paul Offit crossed paths with Maurice Hillman 0:10:43.445 --> 0:10:46.125 during his work with vaccines, and he was in awe 0:10:46.125 --> 0:10:49.005 of the man and his accomplishments, which had gone relatively 0:10:49.085 --> 0:10:52.845 unrecognized considering their impact. So in two thousand and four, 0:10:52.965 --> 0:10:55.085 Paul asked if he could sit down with Hilleman and 0:10:55.205 --> 0:10:59.285 take down his stories. In October of two thousand and four, 0:10:59.765 --> 0:11:03.965 he was diagnosed with disseminated cancer which was not operable, 0:11:04.005 --> 0:11:06.965 and he was given about six months to live and 0:11:07.045 --> 0:11:09.165 lived in fact six months. He died in April the 0:11:09.165 --> 0:11:11.325 following year. And I thought, you're hearing all this, this 0:11:11.445 --> 0:11:14.085 amazing man who has these amazing stories to tell, and 0:11:14.165 --> 0:11:16.165 all those stories were going to die with him. And 0:11:16.205 --> 0:11:18.205 I just asked him if he would be willing to 0:11:18.285 --> 0:11:21.045 let me come, you know, at least once a week 0:11:21.045 --> 0:11:23.005 and hopefully twice a week, to just interview him, to 0:11:23.005 --> 0:11:25.725 sit in his office and interview him. I knew how 0:11:25.725 --> 0:11:28.445 hard it was to do the research and development to 0:11:29.005 --> 0:11:31.645 on one vaccine. The notion that he had essentially done 0:11:31.685 --> 0:11:34.165 that for nine vaccines was like trying to imagine kind 0:11:34.165 --> 0:11:38.125 of a different dimension. Paul wrote a book about Hillman's 0:11:38.125 --> 0:11:43.085 life based on those conversations. It's called Vaccinated. He also 0:11:43.125 --> 0:11:46.845 worked on a documentary called Hilleman. It's directed by Donald Mitchell. 0:11:47.085 --> 0:11:49.205 Who's letting us use some clips from the many hours 0:11:49.205 --> 0:11:52.085 he spent interviewing Hilliman, who was eighty five years old 0:11:52.125 --> 0:11:57.805 at the time. So why don't we start there just 0:11:57.885 --> 0:12:00.405 to have me introduce yourself to me and just tell me, 0:12:00.525 --> 0:12:07.525 you know, briefly, you know what You've done well. I'm 0:12:07.605 --> 0:12:12.805 Maurice Halloman. I had a long career in science, about 0:12:12.845 --> 0:12:18.885 sixty years and Maurice Hilliman was born in nineteen nineteen 0:12:19.285 --> 0:12:22.325 during the Spanish flu epidemic. He grew up working at 0:12:22.325 --> 0:12:25.525 the family farm in Montana. I think that was the 0:12:25.605 --> 0:12:29.245 luckiest thing that could happen to anyone to be born 0:12:29.325 --> 0:12:32.005 on a farm on the western frontier. We had a 0:12:32.045 --> 0:12:36.965 black smash shop, had a machine shop, plants, nursery, stock, 0:12:37.005 --> 0:12:40.645 and so forth. One of my jobs was to take 0:12:40.725 --> 0:12:43.925 care of the chickens. Lots of vaccines are grown in 0:12:44.005 --> 0:12:47.045 chicken eggs, including the annual flu shots and a bunch 0:12:47.085 --> 0:12:51.365 of Hilliman's vaccines, so his childhood experienced raising chickens helped 0:12:51.365 --> 0:12:54.565 bring several vaccines to the world, like the measles vaccine. 0:12:55.165 --> 0:13:00.325 And my career, chickens were my best friend because I 0:13:00.445 --> 0:13:06.205 used them for so many types of experimentation. Never break 0:13:06.285 --> 0:13:14.285 through the experiments. I grew to like chickens stupid, you know, 0:13:14.565 --> 0:13:19.765 But I felt that I owed them and that Hilliman 0:13:19.805 --> 0:13:22.405 had a twin sister who died during her birth. Two 0:13:22.485 --> 0:13:26.085 days later, his mother died from acclampsia, and Hillman told 0:13:26.085 --> 0:13:28.285 Paul that He nearly died many times as a kid 0:13:28.765 --> 0:13:33.965 from disease, drowning, dodging trains, but somehow he always recovered. 0:13:35.405 --> 0:13:37.725 In high school, he worked at a JC Penny. He 0:13:37.765 --> 0:13:40.005 thought that might end up being his career, but he 0:13:40.085 --> 0:13:42.325 was smart, and one of his brothers told him he 0:13:42.325 --> 0:13:45.565 should go to college. He got a scholarship from Montana 0:13:45.565 --> 0:13:48.405 State University and then a PhD in microbiology from the 0:13:48.445 --> 0:13:52.885 University of Chicago. But virology, the study of viruses, was 0:13:52.925 --> 0:13:55.485 still a brand new field with more questions than answers, 0:13:56.685 --> 0:14:00.565 and I gave the first course in virology given in 0:14:00.605 --> 0:14:06.125 the United States lamb and lecture, no textbook. In nineteen 0:14:06.245 --> 0:14:08.605 forty four he went to work for er Squibb and Sons. 0:14:09.005 --> 0:14:11.805 That's where he developed his first vaccine. It was for 0:14:11.925 --> 0:14:15.285 Japanese and cephalitis, a disease spread by mosquitoes that can 0:14:15.285 --> 0:14:20.445 cause brain inflammation. Hillman's work on Japanese and cephalitis was 0:14:20.485 --> 0:14:23.765 for the US military, which needed the work done right away. 0:14:24.405 --> 0:14:27.725 They converted a horse barn into a laboratory and production facility, 0:14:28.245 --> 0:14:31.525 and the process for creating the vaccine was pretty gross. 0:14:32.445 --> 0:14:34.165 Skip forward a couple of minutes if you don't want 0:14:34.165 --> 0:14:37.325 to hear descriptions of dead animals, but it really and 0:14:37.765 --> 0:14:41.885 amounted to was to inoculate mice with a needle into 0:14:41.925 --> 0:14:46.365 the head and to wait about three days before when 0:14:46.405 --> 0:14:51.085 they developed an acute and kephalitis and the virus was 0:14:51.125 --> 0:14:54.365 at its greatest level in the brain. Okay, here's where 0:14:54.365 --> 0:14:57.925 it gets really graphic. Anyway, to just take these mice 0:14:58.005 --> 0:15:02.045 and snap them around a forceps and cut the skin 0:15:02.205 --> 0:15:05.765 off and sterilize it, and pop off the sky and 0:15:05.845 --> 0:15:09.845 the scissors and scoop out the brains which then had 0:15:09.925 --> 0:15:12.405 to be chopped up. And that was done in the 0:15:12.965 --> 0:15:17.365 Fred Waring's blender. Remember he developed that for to mix 0:15:17.525 --> 0:15:21.765 his cocktails. Fred Waring was a famous singer from the 0:15:21.845 --> 0:15:25.285 nineteen twenties to the nineteen to fifties. As a side gig, 0:15:25.485 --> 0:15:30.005 he backed and promoted the first electric blenders, Jonah Salk, 0:15:30.285 --> 0:15:33.485 famous for inventing a polio vaccine. He also used the 0:15:33.525 --> 0:15:37.525 wearing blender. Invariably, they would leak and the virus would 0:15:37.525 --> 0:15:40.925 come out through the bearing at the bottom. Thirty women 0:15:41.045 --> 0:15:46.005 spent three months blending thirty thousand mice brains a day. Altogether, 0:15:46.125 --> 0:15:52.085 they blended enough brains to vaccinate six hundred thousand American troops. Okay, 0:15:52.125 --> 0:15:54.205 no more on mice brains, but there is a bit 0:15:54.245 --> 0:15:58.565 more grossness ahead. After squib, Hillman went to work at 0:15:58.565 --> 0:16:01.765 Walter Reed Army Medical Center. One day he was sent 0:16:01.805 --> 0:16:04.005 out to an army base in Missouri to investigate a 0:16:04.045 --> 0:16:08.285 flu outbreak. For whatever reason, he couldn't get live throat samples, 0:16:08.805 --> 0:16:11.085 so he did the next best thing. He went to 0:16:11.165 --> 0:16:13.685 the morgue and I said, look, I got this all 0:16:13.765 --> 0:16:17.885 phone problem. And fellow said, well, he said, I have 0:16:18.005 --> 0:16:22.645 a body here from a soldier who died four hours ago. 0:16:22.925 --> 0:16:24.605 What do you want, I said, well, I'd like to 0:16:24.645 --> 0:16:26.845 have his trak. Yeah. So I went over to the 0:16:26.925 --> 0:16:30.005 morgue and waited for him to carve out the trachia, 0:16:30.365 --> 0:16:33.205 wrapped it up newspaper and brown back. The lab cut 0:16:33.205 --> 0:16:38.525 it open and started chopping on tissue. Some days, you know, 0:16:38.605 --> 0:16:44.885 everything just goes right. Hilliman cultured cells from the recently 0:16:44.885 --> 0:16:47.925 dead men's trachia and grew virus from them, and in 0:16:47.965 --> 0:16:51.765 the process he helped discover adnoviruses, a family of viruses 0:16:51.765 --> 0:16:54.405 that we all get and that have become very relevant today. 0:16:55.245 --> 0:16:57.885 Adnoviruses are used as a delivery system for some of 0:16:57.885 --> 0:17:01.565 the COVID vaccines like Astra Zeneca's and Johnson and Johnson's. 0:17:03.525 --> 0:17:06.365 After Walter read Hillman went to the re lab at Murk, 0:17:06.725 --> 0:17:10.605 the pharmaceutical giant. When he arrived at Murk, a man 0:17:10.725 --> 0:17:13.445 named Vanavar Bush was a chairman of the board. He 0:17:13.485 --> 0:17:15.525 was one of the people who started the Manhattan projects. 0:17:16.445 --> 0:17:18.965 He said, you know, I got an idea that one 0:17:19.045 --> 0:17:23.565 day these things called viruses are going to be important. 0:17:23.845 --> 0:17:26.045 I really believe that. And he said, I wanted to 0:17:26.085 --> 0:17:29.245 set up a laboratory there will be second and none 0:17:29.245 --> 0:17:32.565 in the world to study of virology. And my vision 0:17:32.845 --> 0:17:35.925 was that, first of all, I wanted to conquer the 0:17:36.085 --> 0:17:41.285 pediatric diseases of children, measles, mumpster of vella, chicken pox, 0:17:42.365 --> 0:17:48.685 to discover the viruses of hepatitis, hepatitis A and Hepatatis B. 0:17:49.165 --> 0:17:52.485 And then I was interested in cancer for its cause 0:17:52.565 --> 0:17:56.045 and control. And there was a late entry of the 0:17:56.125 --> 0:18:02.845 bacterial diseases, vaccines against new Macoccus and nin Jaccacus hem 0:18:02.885 --> 0:18:07.285 offless influence. The years after World War Two are known 0:18:07.325 --> 0:18:10.805 as the Golden Age of vaccinology, but as one writer 0:18:10.885 --> 0:18:12.885 put it, and might be more accurate to call it 0:18:12.925 --> 0:18:17.685 the Hilliman period. Hillman's vaccines saved millions of lives every year. 0:18:18.525 --> 0:18:23.045 He also made vaccines for animals. Hilliman was amazing and 0:18:23.205 --> 0:18:28.885 making vaccines, particularly live attenuated vaccines. They're made by weakening 0:18:28.925 --> 0:18:31.525 a pathogen by passing it through chicken eggs or live 0:18:31.565 --> 0:18:35.045 animals or tissue culture. The idea is to give the 0:18:35.125 --> 0:18:37.285 virus to some other living thing and hope it comes 0:18:37.285 --> 0:18:40.285 out on the other end with less potency. Paul Offit, 0:18:40.565 --> 0:18:44.645 Hillman's biographer, explains, and it's not like there was a 0:18:44.685 --> 0:18:47.005 book on how to weaken viruses. You just kind of 0:18:47.005 --> 0:18:50.125 made it up. You tried to pass viruses in cells 0:18:50.485 --> 0:18:53.685 which the virus normally didn't grow in, so that that 0:18:53.805 --> 0:18:57.085 kind of introduced a series of blind genetic alterations in 0:18:57.125 --> 0:18:59.325 that virus, so to making it weaker and weaker to 0:18:59.365 --> 0:19:02.045 grow in the cells it normally grows in. So you 0:19:02.045 --> 0:19:03.845 would try it, you would pass it a certain number 0:19:03.885 --> 0:19:06.245 of time in these other cells where there was human 0:19:06.365 --> 0:19:09.805 kidney cells or monkey kidney cells or monkey testicular cells 0:19:09.885 --> 0:19:12.725 or whatever was being used chick embryo fiber blass cells 0:19:12.805 --> 0:19:14.965 or mouse embryo fiber blass cells, and then you would 0:19:14.965 --> 0:19:18.525 go back and put it into adults and then younger adults, 0:19:18.525 --> 0:19:21.405 and then older adolescents and then children to make sure 0:19:21.445 --> 0:19:24.845 that it was weak enough but not too weak. And 0:19:24.885 --> 0:19:28.445 there was always a just a trial and error thing. 0:19:29.165 --> 0:19:31.645 And he had a real green thumb for that. I 0:19:31.645 --> 0:19:34.005 mean to make the measles vaccine, to make the mumps vaccine, 0:19:34.045 --> 0:19:36.085 to make the first German measles vaccine, to make the 0:19:36.165 --> 0:19:39.125 chicken box vaccine. That was all Maurice, and he just 0:19:39.205 --> 0:19:44.245 had a green thumb for retenuating viruses. Maybe the most 0:19:44.285 --> 0:19:47.045 amazing green thumb story goes back to nineteen sixty three 0:19:47.565 --> 0:19:51.925 when Hillman's daughter Jeryl Lynn got sick. So he looks 0:19:51.925 --> 0:19:54.645 it up and he's reading about momps because he instantly 0:19:54.725 --> 0:19:58.165 suspects I had moms And that was of course very 0:19:58.205 --> 0:20:01.445 exciting to him because he was working very hard to 0:20:01.485 --> 0:20:05.605 develop a vaccine. You know, when you're going after to 0:20:05.685 --> 0:20:10.885 this attenuation or weakening of the virus, you go and 0:20:11.045 --> 0:20:15.405 you take a specimen from a patient. Now, those viruses 0:20:15.445 --> 0:20:19.085 that are traveling around in the human population are not 0:20:19.205 --> 0:20:23.845 all alike. There are many different what are called clades, 0:20:24.525 --> 0:20:28.765 and you have to find the right clade that is 0:20:28.845 --> 0:20:34.325 going to allow you to attenuate appropriately. The word clade 0:20:34.405 --> 0:20:37.205 can be a bit confusing, but it's basically one step 0:20:37.245 --> 0:20:39.965 down from a strain. Two clades of a virus come 0:20:40.045 --> 0:20:43.245 from the same ancestor, and the right virus was right 0:20:43.365 --> 0:20:49.525 in my house. My daughter, Gerald Lynne came in one 0:20:49.645 --> 0:20:53.325 night and she just looked at Oh my god, yeah, 0:20:53.405 --> 0:20:57.005 I wrote like this, So I said, get back into bed. 0:20:57.445 --> 0:21:00.445 I go up to the labs about one in the morning, 0:21:01.085 --> 0:21:06.485 got specimen collecting things, brought them back to throat swabs, 0:21:06.845 --> 0:21:10.005 took him back to the lab and froze them. So 0:21:10.045 --> 0:21:13.445 now I had specimens out of Jerlynne, my daughter. We 0:21:13.605 --> 0:21:17.965 isolated the virus and went into attenuation. By this one 0:21:17.965 --> 0:21:22.125 went just like that. So Hillaman created a vaccine for 0:21:22.245 --> 0:21:26.445 mumps using the swab from little Jeraln's th roat. Actually, 0:21:26.925 --> 0:21:33.085 my other daughter, Kirsten was about one year old at 0:21:33.125 --> 0:21:36.405 the time that we had the vaccine coming along, and 0:21:36.445 --> 0:21:41.205 a picture was taken of gerald convincing her sister that 0:21:41.365 --> 0:21:45.845 she ought to take the vaccine. Gerald says it won't hurt. 0:21:46.645 --> 0:21:53.965 She's like hill here's jeral Lynn again. The name of 0:21:54.005 --> 0:21:56.285 the vaccine is to jaral Lyn strain. It's on all 0:21:56.325 --> 0:21:59.845 of the boxes and package inserts that come out. So 0:22:00.165 --> 0:22:02.485 I have had the pleasure throughout my life of also 0:22:02.565 --> 0:22:09.725 being called miss momps and usually by pediatricians. Gerald Lynne 0:22:09.765 --> 0:22:12.045 never saw it herself, but she told me that even 0:22:12.085 --> 0:22:14.325 at the end of her father's life, he kept a 0:22:14.365 --> 0:22:16.445 list in his pocket of all the diseases he wanted 0:22:16.485 --> 0:22:21.045 to tackle. Well before vaccines, essentially one hundred percent of 0:22:21.085 --> 0:22:25.725 the children became infected with all of these measles, mumps, 0:22:25.725 --> 0:22:32.725 and essentially reubella were ubiquitous. These diseases have essentially disappeared. 0:22:33.885 --> 0:22:39.285 That must be for you very satisfied too, well, think 0:22:39.325 --> 0:22:45.885 about those that's numbers, Well, yes it is, but you know, 0:22:46.005 --> 0:22:50.285 for a scientist, it's the winning that counts. It's my 0:22:51.045 --> 0:22:54.405 climbing mountains. You know, you get up here, and you 0:22:54.445 --> 0:22:56.285 get up to the top of this one, you got 0:22:56.285 --> 0:22:58.525 a couple more that you're trying to climb up. At 0:22:58.525 --> 0:23:02.805 the same time, looking back on one's lifetime, you say, gee, 0:23:02.805 --> 0:23:06.525 what have I done? Have I done enough for the 0:23:06.565 --> 0:23:10.245 world to justify having been here? You know that's big worry. 0:23:10.845 --> 0:23:14.605 And I would say I'm kind of pleased about all this. 0:23:14.765 --> 0:23:17.285 I'm not smug about it, but I'm pleased I would 0:23:17.285 --> 0:23:20.485 do it over again because there's a great joy in 0:23:20.645 --> 0:23:25.805 being useful, and that's the satisfaction that you get out 0:23:25.845 --> 0:23:30.405 of it. Other than that, it's the quest of science 0:23:30.445 --> 0:23:33.845 and winning a battle over these damn bugs. You know, 0:23:53.165 --> 0:23:55.885 when Rotor Shield was pulled off shelves, it changed the 0:23:55.885 --> 0:23:58.925 way vaccine trials were run. Nobody wanted to see another 0:23:59.045 --> 0:24:02.285 rare adverse event like into susception slipped through the cracks. 0:24:02.565 --> 0:24:05.405 The later findings questioned whether Rodo shield even caused one 0:24:06.405 --> 0:24:09.405 in any case. Vaccine safety trials ever since have become 0:24:09.525 --> 0:24:14.685 larger and more informative. That includes the COVID vaccines. Johnson 0:24:14.685 --> 0:24:19.285 and Johnson, AstraZeneca, Fiser, Maderna, and others around the world 0:24:19.285 --> 0:24:22.085 have all been amongst the largest clinical trials in history. 0:24:23.085 --> 0:24:25.405 Vaccines have come a long way since Maurice Hilliman was 0:24:25.445 --> 0:24:28.885 somehow making them with blenders and corpses and saving millions 0:24:28.925 --> 0:24:32.805 of lives in the process. Paul Offitt, who worked with 0:24:32.885 --> 0:24:35.645