Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this podcast will
Speaker 1: Kill You. You are listening to the latest episode in
Speaker 1: our tp w k Y book Club series, where we
Speaker 1: chat with authors about their popular books in science and medicine.
Speaker 1: We've gotten to have fantastic conversation so far, and there
Speaker 1: are so many more to come. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: see the full list of books we've already covered and
Speaker 1: those that we'll be covering later this season as a
Speaker 1: part of the series, check out our website this Podcast
Speaker 1: will kill You dot Com, where you can find a
Speaker 1: link to our bookshop dot org affiliate account. Under the
Speaker 1: extras tab on our bookshop page, there are a bunch
Speaker 1: of TPWKY lists featuring books we've read for our regular episodes.
Speaker 1: Memoirs about Health and Disease, a list of fiction books
Speaker 1: about disease. Should we do a book club on disease
Speaker 1: themed novels? Is anyone out there a member of a
Speaker 1: book club on disease themed novels? Because that sounds like
Speaker 1: so much fun? And also on our bookshop is of
Speaker 1: course a book club list where you can find all
Speaker 1: of the books we're featuring in this and last season's
Speaker 1: TPWKY book Club series. As always, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you about how you're in joying these episodes, whether
Speaker 1: you have any book suggestions for future episodes, favorite episodes
Speaker 1: so far. Whatever your thoughts are, send them to us
Speaker 1: via the contact us form on our website. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into the book of the week. Doctor Paul
Speaker 1: Offitt joins us to discuss his recent book, Tell Me
Speaker 1: When It's Over and Insider's Guide to Deciphering COVID myths
Speaker 1: and navigating our post pandemic world. Frequent listeners of the
Speaker 1: podcast are no doubt familiar with doctor off It's name.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned a few of his previous books in some
Speaker 1: of our episodes, such as his book Vaccinated, One Man's
Speaker 1: Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases, which tells the
Speaker 1: story of Maurice Hillman, who developed many of the most
Speaker 1: common vaccines in use today. Or maybe you've heard us
Speaker 1: mention Deadly Choices, How the anti vaccine movement Threatens Us All,
Speaker 1: which takes readers through the history and rise of anti
Speaker 1: vaccine sentiment. And doctor Offitt is somewhat of a public
Speaker 1: health celebrity, appearing on popular news programs championing the life
Speaker 1: saving power of vaccines. Off Its titles and credentials are
Speaker 1: almost too long to list. The Maurice Hillman, Professor of Vaccinology,
Speaker 1: Professor of Pediatrics at the Pariland School of Medicine at
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Vaccine Education Center
Speaker 1: at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, member of the FDA
Speaker 1: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and so many others.
Speaker 1: But perhaps one of his biggest accomplishments is as co
Speaker 1: inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, which has prevented hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of deaths around the world. Off It's passion for
Speaker 1: communicating about the power and safety of vaccines, as well
Speaker 1: as combating the miss and disinformation undermining public health efforts
Speaker 1: takes shape in his newest book about the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 1: In the aptly name Tell Me When It's Over, Afa
Speaker 1: takes readers through what we have learned about the COVID
Speaker 1: pandemic and stars COVID two, the virus at the center
Speaker 1: of it all. He breaks down where this virus originated,
Speaker 1: dismantles the lab leak conspiracy theory, discusses some of the
Speaker 1: ways that the public lost confidence in US government institutions
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. Explores this new flavor of anti vaccine
Speaker 1: sentiment that took hold during COVID and which has really
Speaker 1: only grown since, and presents ways that we can fight
Speaker 1: against the rise in anti science and regain public trust.
Speaker 1: The COVID pandemic revealed how we can accomplish incredible feats
Speaker 1: by investing time and resources into public health, giving us
Speaker 1: a safe and effective vaccine in record speed, But it
Speaker 1: also showed the gaps in our system, how myths and
Speaker 1: disinformation can quickly fill a knowledge foroid, and how crucial
Speaker 1: it is to learn how to communicate our science to
Speaker 1: the public, including when science doesn't know it all or
Speaker 1: gets it wrong. COVID is here to stay, and unless
Speaker 1: we do something about it, so is this rise in
Speaker 1: anti science and anti vaccine sentiment. Let's get into this
Speaker 1: interview right after this break, Doctor Offitt, I really can't
Speaker 1: express how excited I am to be chatting with you today.
Speaker 1: You are a huge public health hero of mine and
Speaker 1: the incredible and impactful science can communication work that you do,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to vaccines, and not to mention
Speaker 1: your work on developing said life saving vaccines, it is
Speaker 1: simply amazing. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for asking me. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Your latest book, Tell Me when it's over, covers the
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic, getting to the root of some COVID myths,
Speaker 1: explaining the vaccine, and it essentially acts as a guide
Speaker 1: for how we're supposed to get used to this post
Speaker 1: pandemic world. How did you decide that you wanted to
Speaker 1: write this book?
Speaker 2: What was cathartic? I mean, I am you know, the
Speaker 2: virus came into the US early twenty twenty. In April,
Speaker 2: Francis Collins, who was then head of the NIH, asked
Speaker 2: me to be part of this public private partnership called
Speaker 2: active activ which stood for Accelerating COVID Technological Innovations and Vaccines,
Speaker 2: and so you know, we were essentially advising pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 2: on how best to test vaccines and potential law viral
Speaker 2: and I'm on the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee, so I
Speaker 2: really got to watch this up close. And in many
Speaker 2: ways the book was cathartic. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 2: with the way it played out in twenty twenty. Aside
Speaker 2: from having nothing right, we didn't have anti virals. To October,
Speaker 2: we didn't have monoclonals. Still in November, we didn't have
Speaker 2: vaccines stil December, so ate nothing other than avoiding human
Speaker 2: to human contact. And then in April, the Trump administration
Speaker 2: was convinced that hydroxy cleric when was our ticket out right.
Speaker 2: This was going to be the magic medicine that was
Speaker 2: going to make it all go away. And so the
Speaker 2: government bought almost thirty million doses of hydroxychloric WIN and
Speaker 2: successfully twisted the arm of the FDA to authorize it
Speaker 2: without any evidence that it worked, without any evidence that
Speaker 2: it worked to either treat or prevent the disease. You
Speaker 2: certainly already knew about the safety issues, which were potential
Speaker 2: harder rhythms, and so they approved it, and that scared people.
Speaker 2: It scared me, I wrote an op ed for The
Speaker 2: New York Times, saying, fearing in October, surprise, here the
Speaker 2: Trump administration successfully twisted the arm of the FDA to
Speaker 2: approve it drug that didn't necessarily work to treat it preventzies.
Speaker 2: That's their job, I mean, the job of the FDA
Speaker 2: is stand to stand between pharmaceutical companies and the public
Speaker 2: and protect the public. So now you know you're scared
Speaker 2: about how the vaccine's going to play out, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: the Trump pulled Stephen Hahn into his office and in
Speaker 2: an invective, Leyden Tirade said, I want this vaccine out
Speaker 2: before the election, which was the beginning of November. And
Speaker 2: were that to be true, then you wouldn't have that
Speaker 2: two month safety follow up that you have for pretty
Speaker 2: much every vaccine after the last nose, which wouldn't be
Speaker 2: till December. So the Hans still to his credit, stood
Speaker 2: up to him put it on their website this is
Speaker 2: what we're going to do. But people still didn't. Now
Speaker 2: you've really had a critical loss of trust in the FDA.
Speaker 2: Country after country, state after state stood up and said
Speaker 2: we're going to have our own vaccine advisor committees. Trust us.
Speaker 2: They didn't trust the Vaccine Advisory Committee. And so it
Speaker 2: was a really turbulent time. And between that and a
Speaker 2: number of what I think were communications errors, including not
Speaker 2: trivia ones that occurred after that, I just this was
Speaker 2: a catharsis. I just had to get this book out.
Speaker 2: I feel much better now, thank you for letting me
Speaker 2: write it.
Speaker 1: And as you began putting this book together and deciding
Speaker 1: what you wanted to include. How was your approach guided
Speaker 1: by your intended audience and was that audience. Is your
Speaker 1: audience for this book different than for past books that
Speaker 1: you've written.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's the same. I think it's the
Speaker 2: same for all my books. I guess the audience will
Speaker 2: desire that, but it's for a general audience. It's kind
Speaker 2: of what happened because I think in many ways, the
Speaker 2: book is a story of two remarkable, contrasting things. One
Speaker 2: is that we isolate a virus in January of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty we sequence it so now you can potentially make
Speaker 2: a vaccine. It's an unusual virus, had an interesting sort
Speaker 2: of biological and clinical characteristics. And then eleven months later,
Speaker 2: using a technology a messenger RNA that we never used before,
Speaker 2: we had no experience with that technology. We're with the
Speaker 2: vector virus approach by Johnson and Johnson. You had two
Speaker 2: large clinical trials and then the in February of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, you had a large J and J. Johnson
Speaker 2: and Johnson trial that showed that the vaccines were effective,
Speaker 2: remarkably effective. And then over a period of six or
Speaker 2: seven months, we immunized seventy percent for the US population
Speaker 2: a million people a day, two million people a day,
Speaker 2: three million people a day. And then, and I think
Speaker 2: that I think that was the most significant scientific and
Speaker 2: medical accomplishment in my lifetime. And I'm old, so my
Speaker 2: lifetime includes the development of the polio vaccine. I think
Speaker 2: it was amazing. Actually, then we hit a wall and
Speaker 2: by mid twenty twenty one thirty percent of this country
Speaker 2: did not want to get vaccinated. Ultimately, three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people lost their life because they didn't trust us. They
Speaker 2: didn't trust the FDA, didn't trust the CDC, they didn't
Speaker 2: trust other public health agencies. Why what happened? How did
Speaker 2: we lose that trust? And I think that's why I
Speaker 2: wrote the book What happened? How do we lose it?
Speaker 2: And how can we get it back.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break here. We'll be back before
Speaker 1: you know it. Welcome back, everyone, I'm here chatting with
Speaker 1: doctor Paul Offitt about his book. Tell me when it's over.
Speaker 1: Let's jump back into some questions. Like you said, you've
Speaker 1: been in the vaccine game for quite some time, and
Speaker 1: you've witnessed firsthand and have written and spoken a lot
Speaker 1: about this rise in anti vaccine sentiment over the past
Speaker 1: few decades. But now post COVID and during cod we're
Speaker 1: seeing a drop in vaccine compliance rates unlike anything previously witnessed.
Speaker 1: What do you think is unique about this decline and
Speaker 1: why was COVID this perfect storm to grow anti vaccine
Speaker 1: in anti science sentiment.
Speaker 2: Well, I would have imagined the opposite was true. I mean,
Speaker 2: typically what anti vaccine activists will say is, give me
Speaker 2: a pandemic, then I get the idea of being vaccinated
Speaker 2: or even mandating vaccinating vaccines. Give me, show me a pandemic. Well,
Speaker 2: this was a pandemic. We had more than one point
Speaker 2: one million people dying this country. People were dying right
Speaker 2: in front of us. I think all of us at
Speaker 2: least know someone who was at least seriously ill and died.
Speaker 2: I mean, my aunt died of this virus. And so
Speaker 2: you didn't have to convince people. I would think that
Speaker 2: it was real and the vaccine clearly worked and it
Speaker 2: was safe. It wasn't absolutely safe, but it was pretty
Speaker 2: darn safe, the mRNA vaccines. It was my caroditis within
Speaker 2: four days of those two, which was generally self resolving
Speaker 2: and short lived. But in the scheme of things, considering
Speaker 2: it was a novel technology for a novel virus, we
Speaker 2: I never really saw the other shoe drop. So so
Speaker 2: you had you had your ticket out of this pandemic,
Speaker 2: and nonetheless people rejecting. And I think the reason was
Speaker 2: because you're right. I think the anti vaccine movement is stronger.
Speaker 2: They're better funded, and they're stronger, and I think it
Speaker 2: all has to do with this, which is politics. I
Speaker 2: think they're there. Although there's always a political implication for
Speaker 2: vaccines because they require support, you know that they you're
Speaker 2: going anything I think that requires funding public funding is
Speaker 2: going to be political, but it doesn't have to be partisan.
Speaker 2: But this was partisan, you know. On the left, anti
Speaker 2: vaccine activity was always you know, just don't inject me
Speaker 2: with anything with a chemical name, you know, so which
Speaker 2: is pretty much water of course has a chemical claim.
Speaker 2: And on the right it was this libertarian I don't
Speaker 2: want the government to tell me what to do. That
Speaker 2: is the current politics, which is federal government off my back.
Speaker 2: And and so that's where all the money came from.
Speaker 2: Eric Trump at you know, Donald Trump's son stood up
Speaker 2: at one of the brollies and said, if you don't
Speaker 2: want to get a vaccine, know that the Republican Party
Speaker 2: has your back, which is amazing because it was the
Speaker 2: Trump administration that created this vaccine with Operation Warp Speed.
Speaker 2: And yet, if anything, Donald Trump distanced himself from arguably
Speaker 2: his greatest accomplishment. So they're they're very well funded, they're
Speaker 2: more active than ever, and I think that at the
Speaker 2: heart of it is mandates. I think when we mandated
Speaker 2: that vaccine and people lost their jobs and people couldn't
Speaker 2: go to the bar they wanted to go through, the
Speaker 2: restaurant they wanted to go to, the sporting events closed down,
Speaker 2: you know, schools closed, travel was restricted. People felt that,
Speaker 2: you know, they were mandated to wear masks, mandated to
Speaker 2: get a vaccine, and that leaned into this libertarian left hook.
Speaker 2: And this is what you have, a well funded, sort
Speaker 2: of libertarian anti vaccine campaign that has now been embraced
Speaker 2: by the right.
Speaker 1: And I kind of wanted to get into this a
Speaker 1: little bit more when it comes to like how this
Speaker 1: miss disinformation spread and the role of social media. What
Speaker 1: do you think social media is doing to kind of
Speaker 1: facilitate the spread of this bad scientific information?
Speaker 2: Right, you can very easily find awful information about vaccines
Speaker 2: that will fit any conspiracy theory. If you're hesitant about
Speaker 2: getting a vaccine, and it's understandable that you would be hesitant.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're asking people who are otherwise healthy to
Speaker 2: inject themselves with a biological. In this case, the biological
Speaker 2: is something with which we had no experience, and it's
Speaker 2: a genetic vaccine. And the minute you say that word genetic,
Speaker 2: people are thinking it's going to alter my genes. And
Speaker 2: that's part of the argument that people have made. Right
Speaker 2: there's DNA fragments in this vaccine that will alter your
Speaker 2: genome and or that the mRNA can you know, can
Speaker 2: enter your nucleus and get reverse transcribed and then enter
Speaker 2: your DNA and that would be the best news for
Speaker 2: gene therapy ever, if that actually was possible with this
Speaker 2: m RNA vaccines. But you know, so it's very easy
Speaker 2: to get that notion out there that this vaccines can
Speaker 2: do harm. The CDC director in two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: was a man named Richard Besser, and that's when we
Speaker 2: had this wine flu pandemic, and he was great. He
Speaker 2: was out there every other day, every third day, in
Speaker 2: front of the media, answering their questions. This is what
Speaker 2: the vaccine is, this is how we're going to distribute it,
Speaker 2: this is how it's made, this is what the virus
Speaker 2: is doing. This is where the virus is now, there's
Speaker 2: where this is where we expect the virus is going
Speaker 2: to be. He was the model of how you communicate
Speaker 2: what we were doing and why we were doing it.
Speaker 2: So I saw him at a National Foundation of Infectious
Speaker 2: Disease meeting a couple of months ago and I said
Speaker 2: that to him. I said, you were great, you were
Speaker 2: a model. He said, thank you. I could never do
Speaker 2: it today. Two reasons politics and social media.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to go back to something that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, which is about how this anti vaccine movement
Speaker 1: is so much better funded these days. And you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to other subjects that are popular with
Speaker 1: the anti science crowd, so things like human and climate change,
Speaker 1: or historically cigarettes and lung cancer feel like it's easier
Speaker 1: to see it's easier to make those connections, to see
Speaker 1: the motivations of the people or the groups that are
Speaker 1: spreading disinformation with climate change. Of course, the fossil fuel
Speaker 1: industry doesn't want to lose profits as a result. Of
Speaker 1: changing policies, and that's more or less the same thing
Speaker 1: with big tobacco. As soon as that link about lung
Speaker 1: cancer and cigarettes came out, it was like, let's quash
Speaker 1: this pretty clear motivation there. But I feel like identifying
Speaker 1: the drivers of the anti vaccine disinformation campaigns it's not
Speaker 1: as straightforward. So how can we categorize some of those drivers?
Speaker 2: No, that's a really good point. I haven't thought of
Speaker 2: it that way, But you're right. I mean, what exactly
Speaker 2: is the financial motivation here? Assuming there's always a financial motivation?
Speaker 2: And I think it's just an expression of this notion
Speaker 2: of autonomy, sort of personal freedoms, and that the uber allis.
Speaker 2: I think that's just sort of become the ra of
Speaker 2: the Republican right. And I think that's why, especially although
Speaker 2: well the right, I'll just say, and so that's their
Speaker 2: current mantra. I think it just fits into their zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that there is any financial motivation, but
Speaker 2: there's certainly a lot of money to support it, I
Speaker 2: mean more so than there is. You know, there was
Speaker 2: an article ramonograph by a group called the Center for
Speaker 2: Countering Digital Hate, and they had what they called the
Speaker 2: disinformation doesn't, and so it was twelve people or groups
Speaker 2: that accounted for about seventy percent of the misinformation it
Speaker 2: was out there. Their funding was often the same. They
Speaker 2: all got pretty much funding from the same source, which
Speaker 2: was the dietary supplement industry, which in many ways is
Speaker 2: the same thing, because there are two. As a matter
Speaker 2: of medical freedoms, we don't want the FDA telling us
Speaker 2: what we can or can say, because when we say
Speaker 2: things like, you know, this will make your prostate smaller
Speaker 2: or this will make your immune system better, we want
Speaker 2: to be able to say that even though we have
Speaker 2: no evidence that that's true. And so the f HE
Speaker 2: sort of pushes back and doesn't really let you say that.
Speaker 2: You have to be vague or right. It supports pro
Speaker 2: sate health, im you and heal you, heart health, whatever,
Speaker 2: and so they really are in many ways aligned with
Speaker 2: this group, which also likes to make claims that are unsupported.
Speaker 1: And I feel like so much of this has to
Speaker 1: do too with how uncertainty is communicated in popular media,
Speaker 1: where scientists and people trained as scientists or as medical
Speaker 1: practitioners are sort of it's ingrained in us to be
Speaker 1: more conservative in saying this causes this, or this is
Speaker 1: the evidence for this, or there's a strong relationship. And
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted this as like a very roundabout
Speaker 1: way of getting to my question, which is sort of
Speaker 1: about the way you think that scientists are trained in
Speaker 1: how to communicate with the public or the popular media,
Speaker 1: and how we can do better with that.
Speaker 2: I think our training as scientists is the opposite of
Speaker 2: the training that we need to educate the public and
Speaker 2: the about scientific issues, because when you write a scientific
Speaker 2: paper or a publish or scientific paper, the biggest sin you
Speaker 2: can commit is to ever go beyond the data in
Speaker 2: front of you, so you are a good scientific paper
Speaker 2: is one that in theory draws a conclusion and then
Speaker 2: the discussion section is full of caveats. Right, I really
Speaker 2: can't say this or this or this because my data
Speaker 2: limit me in terms of what I can say about that,
Speaker 2: and so we're always very careful. That's number one that
Speaker 2: doesn't come off well, at least in a popular press
Speaker 2: or in the media, because it sounds like you're wishy washy.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you're not sure of what you're saying.
Speaker 2: The other thing is is just the nature of the
Speaker 2: scientific method, which is that you formulate hypothesis, and then
Speaker 2: you can do two things with that hypothesis. You can
Speaker 2: reject it or not reject it, but you can never
Speaker 2: accept it, which is to say you can never prove
Speaker 2: never because the null hypothesis is paramount, and you can't
Speaker 2: ever accept the n all high positive. So I mean
Speaker 2: so as as an example, as a little boy, I
Speaker 2: watched the TV show Superman, which was black and white,
Speaker 2: and Christopher Reeve was it was before Chris Reeve was
Speaker 2: George Reeves. And you know, he flew. And when you're
Speaker 2: five years old and you're watching TV, TV does not lie,
Speaker 2: and so so you know he tie it. He'd had
Speaker 2: his cape and his hair would fly, and he would
Speaker 2: look at the city below and he would fly. So
Speaker 2: what I did was I went in the backyard and
Speaker 2: on a small chair, I stood up, and I put
Speaker 2: a towel around me and put my hands in front
Speaker 2: of me using the interlocking thumb grip, which I thought
Speaker 2: was critical to the whole experience because that's what he did.
Speaker 2: And I jumped a few times and didn't fly. You know,
Speaker 2: spoiler alert, I didn't fly. Now I could have done
Speaker 2: it a million times, that wouldn't have proven that I
Speaker 2: couldn't fly, it would only have made it all the
Speaker 2: more statistically unlikely. I could have done it a billion times,
Speaker 2: ten billion times, because the scientific method does not allow
Speaker 2: me to say I can't fly, the least not without
Speaker 2: a plane, but I can't fly. And so I can
Speaker 2: say that, and I think you have to get used
Speaker 2: to that. So, for example, you can't say the MMR
Speaker 2: vaccine doesn't cause autism. All you can say is that
Speaker 2: there are eighteen studies that have been done in seven
Speaker 2: countries on three continents, involving hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 2: at the show that you're no more likely to develop
Speaker 2: autism if you've gotten the vaccine if you haven't. That's
Speaker 2: what you can say. And so I had to testify
Speaker 2: once in front of Dan Burton's Committee Office of Government
Speaker 2: Reform about that issue. Andrew Wakefield had just published his paper.
Speaker 2: He was on the other side. I was on the
Speaker 2: side of good trying to explain what we knew about
Speaker 2: MMR vaccine or what we knew about autism. And Colleen Boyle,
Speaker 2: who was great from the CDC, you know, she got
Speaker 2: up and she explained what the early data showed in
Speaker 2: terms of there was no association, no statistical association with
Speaker 2: those two things. But Dan Burton heard weakness in that,
Speaker 2: and he said, so you can't tell me. You can't
Speaker 2: tell me it doesn't cause it, do you, because you
Speaker 2: have and I quote an out in the back of
Speaker 2: this thing and so and so that you know, it's
Speaker 2: hard that you have to get used to that at
Speaker 2: some level that you are saying things that at some
Speaker 2: level scientifically you can't say. And for scientists that's hard.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 1: there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've
Speaker 1: been chatting with doctor Paul Offitt about his book Tell
Speaker 1: Me when it's over, An Insider's Guide to Deciphering COVID
Speaker 1: myths and navigating our post pandemic world. Let's get back
Speaker 1: into things. What do you think is the appeal of
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories like the microchip in a COVID vaccine.
Speaker 2: Well, conspiracy theories are easy to understand. They explain something clearly,
Speaker 2: They give you a handle on it, even if it's
Speaker 2: not true. I mean, I think the best example at
Speaker 2: the begin this pandemic was the notion that it was
Speaker 2: a lab leak. This wasn't a lablink. I mean it was.
Speaker 2: I was actually just on Morning Joe this morning at
Speaker 2: like a quarter of tenant, and that was his question.
Speaker 2: He said to me, I used a thoughtful smart man,
Speaker 2: he said, you know, I've had people say to me,
Speaker 2: people in the medical field or the scientific field say
Speaker 2: to me sort of on the side, as if this
Speaker 2: is our secret. You know that we're trying to hide this,
Speaker 2: that you know this what this may well have leaked
Speaker 2: from a lab and you know it's it's frist has
Speaker 2: never happened. Never has a pandemic virus ever been created
Speaker 2: in the laboratory. Two is all the evidence is on
Speaker 2: the other side, right, I mean you hear you have
Speaker 2: the western section of the Hunah seafood market where there
Speaker 2: were dozens of animals that were sold illegally in very close,
Speaker 2: unsanitary conditions, and the kinds of animals, you know, red foxes,
Speaker 2: raccoon dogs that can catch and transmit a virus like
Speaker 2: SARS Kobe two. I mean SARS one was an animal
Speaker 2: to human spillover event in two thousand and two. Mers
Speaker 2: was an animal to human spillover event twenty twelve. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not like the black plague was you know,
Speaker 2: created in the medieval biocontainment lab. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: these things that are invariably animal the human spillover events,
Speaker 2: and you have have you know, the sort of pictures
Speaker 2: that were taken of that western section of the market
Speaker 2: that were sent to to people in the United States,
Speaker 2: media people in the United States, so you see how
Speaker 2: unsanitary those conditions were. And the Chinese really did look
Speaker 2: at for genetic evidence of this virus, SARS Kobe two
Speaker 2: virus in things like the machines that kill the animals,
Speaker 2: you know, the brushes that brushed the animals, or the
Speaker 2: tables in which the animals were sacrificed, were the you know,
Speaker 2: the the other the cages themselves, and found the evidence
Speaker 2: of SARS Kobe two virus there, So it's creating a lab.
Speaker 2: Then what the laboratory person had to do was then
Speaker 2: travel nine miles to to where this Muhan seafood market
Speaker 2: was across the yankste River and then deposited in a
Speaker 2: place exactly where you would expect an animal to human
Speaker 2: spill over vent to occur. So this is not a
Speaker 2: scientific countries. I mean, you don't have you know, the
Speaker 2: clear smoking gun. I mean, you don't have like a
Speaker 2: raccoon dog standing up like at the end of crime
Speaker 2: and punishment and saying it was me that killed the
Speaker 2: seafood vendor. Right, So you don't have that, but you
Speaker 2: have a confluence of evidence that tells you it's all
Speaker 2: on one side. And actually, my best, the best comment
Speaker 2: I've heard is that this is a promiscuous virus. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's if you were trying to target it to humans,
Speaker 2: it's targeted to at least three dozen other animal species.
Speaker 2: And so the line was if this was created in
Speaker 2: the lab, it was created by an underperforming graduate student.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have so like you said, we
Speaker 1: have so many road maps for how this happened, and
Speaker 1: we people have been predicting something like this for decades.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that going back to sort
Speaker 1: of this cognitive dissonance between people were hoping and hoping
Speaker 1: for a vaccine and when it finally came out, when
Speaker 1: it was finally available, there would be someone who's as
Speaker 1: their relative is dying in a hospital. This person will
Speaker 1: be simultaneously tweeting about microchips or tweeting about fatal side effection.
Speaker 1: The vaccine, Like, where does that cognitive dissonance come from?
Speaker 1: Maybe that's just like a philosophical question that we can't answer,
Speaker 1: but it's just something that I find really hard to
Speaker 1: kind of like grapple with.
Speaker 2: I think part of it is we definitely lost trust,
Speaker 2: and I think that there's a few reasons for that.
Speaker 2: One is that there's just a general anti institutional bias,
Speaker 2: so it's not just the FDA and CDC that's lost trust,
Speaker 2: Department of Justice, FBI, etc. Two is there is this
Speaker 2: flood of disinformation at a level I think we've never
Speaker 2: seen before, it's never been better funded before. But the
Speaker 2: third is that I think we did make communications mistakes
Speaker 2: and that's one reason why you lost strust, and therefore
Speaker 2: those conspiracy theories become more more attractive. So, for example,
Speaker 2: to me, the biggest one occurred in July of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, when thousands of men go to Provenstyle, Massachusetts
Speaker 2: to celebrate the July fourth holiday, and seventy nine percent
Speaker 2: were already vaccinated. Nonetheless, there's a COVID outbreak, so three
Speaker 2: hundred and forty six men who were in attendance got COVID,
Speaker 2: all of whom had been vaccinated, four were hospitalized. So
Speaker 2: that's a hospitalization rate at one point two percent. That's
Speaker 2: a vaccine working very very well, right, I mean, to
Speaker 2: do vaccines doing what you wanted to do, keeping out
Speaker 2: of the hospital. The other three hundred and forty two
Speaker 2: had mild or asymptomatic infection, which when the CDC reported this,
Speaker 2: the headline in MORBIDI Imortality Weekly report was breakthrough infections.
Speaker 2: They called these asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infections breakthrough infections,
Speaker 2: as if this vaccine had failed. I mean, breakthrough was
Speaker 2: a very negative word. Whereas the goal of this vaccine
Speaker 2: was to keep you out of the hospital. The goal
Speaker 2: of this vaccine was to prevent serious infections, and the
Speaker 2: vaccine was doing exactly that. I mean, you if you
Speaker 2: watch Brett Kavanaugh, for example, Supreme Court Justice. You know
Speaker 2: he's entering the Supreme Court chamber. He routinely screen and
Speaker 2: found to be positive is around the same time, and
Speaker 2: they called that breakthrough infection. If you watch the way
Speaker 2: that the CNN carried that story, you thought the man
Speaker 2: was fighting for his life. I mean, Lindsey Graham actually
Speaker 2: had again, because this is mid twenty twenty one, it's
Speaker 2: two dose vaccine. Time he gotten two dose of vaccine,
Speaker 2: he had a three or four day illness that was
Speaker 2: characterized by sinusitis, and he said, and I quote, this
Speaker 2: would have been much worse if I hadn't been vaccinated. Right,
Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham got it exactly right. And how often do
Speaker 2: you get to say that.
Speaker 1: Even a broken clock is right twice a day? I
Speaker 1: guess yeah. I think that that sort of messaging has
Speaker 1: still had lingering effects.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing a news report maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks back about the latest booster and how it prevented
Speaker 1: symptoms and X number of people who received it, And
Speaker 1: it's still perpetuating this notion that vaccines are there to
Speaker 1: entirely prevent any sort of symptomatic disease and that's not
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: This upsets me more than anything else. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's a short incubation period mucoastal infection, my mild infection
Speaker 2: is prevented by high levels of virus specific circulating neutralizing
Speaker 2: antibodies at the time of exposure, and antibodies don't list
Speaker 2: that long. They will fade over four to six months.
Speaker 2: I think we were fulled in a sentence. In December
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, when those two large clinical trials were
Speaker 2: presented with fires or MODERNA you know, fives or forty
Speaker 2: thousand person modernity thirty thirty thousand, you know, placebo prospective
Speaker 2: placeical control trials, the efficacy was ninety five percent against
Speaker 2: severe disease. It was also ninety five percent against mild disease.
Speaker 2: And the reason is is those were three month studies.
Speaker 2: Those participants had just gotten their second dose. That's why
Speaker 2: it was so good. So six months later, five studies
Speaker 2: showed that protection against severe disease was holding up well
Speaker 2: in the ninety percent range, but protection against mild it
Speaker 2: had faded to fifty percent. That had to happen. And
Speaker 2: see that in combination with mandating vaccine. You have to
Speaker 2: get this vaccine or else you don't get to go
Speaker 2: to work. And then people would did it. They got
Speaker 2: the vaccine, then they had a mild illness that said, say,
Speaker 2: the CDC told me that this vaccine was going to
Speaker 2: protect me, and now it didn't. I'm having this breakthrough illness.
Speaker 2: I mean it really angered people actually who watched away.
Speaker 2: For example, Rhando Santis his stump speeches would often say
Speaker 2: you you all know the CDC told us this vaccine
Speaker 2: was going to work, and it didn't. Well, it did,
Speaker 2: It worked to prevent severe disease. Actually, if you look
Speaker 2: at the way that they're currently messaging the flu vaccine,
Speaker 2: the CDC, it's exactly right. Their slogan is wild to mild.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about something you discussed in
Speaker 1: your book, which is this difference between a deficit of
Speaker 1: knowledge and a deficit of trust when it comes to
Speaker 1: the COVID vaccine, And I was wondering whether you could
Speaker 1: explain a bit more about what you mean by that,
Speaker 1: and also how unequal access to healthcare plays into this right.
Speaker 2: I think probably the most telling studies were that those
Speaker 2: who chose not to get a vaccine often had little
Speaker 2: contact with the healthcare system, which I think is an
Speaker 2: underlining kind of the sorry state of healthcare in this country.
Speaker 2: I mean, we don't have a national healthcare system, so
Speaker 2: not everybody easily gets healthcare, and so therefore there's that
Speaker 2: deficit of knowledge because you aren't able to ask that
Speaker 2: your doctor, you know, should I get this vaccine. There
Speaker 2: was a story I tell in this about a nurse
Speaker 2: name or an intensivist named Britney Kobe in Alabama, who
Speaker 2: you know, who would often see people come into the
Speaker 2: hospital had unvaccinated, you know, suffering and dying. And she said,
Speaker 2: the question that I always asked was did you talk
Speaker 2: to somebody about this, somebody in the healthcare profession? And
Speaker 2: the answer was invariably no. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 2: if you looking, for example, people over sixty five, they're
Speaker 2: certainly more likely to it's the older you are, the
Speaker 2: more like you are to be a Republican to the
Speaker 2: older you are, the more like over sixty five, you're
Speaker 2: more likely to watch watch Fox News. But misinformation isn't destiny.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're also very likely to be vaccinated. There's
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of people over sixty five or vaccinated
Speaker 2: because they because we have Medicare in the United States
Speaker 2: and so they often can get healthcare. And I think
Speaker 2: that's that's key. But I think it is fixable. And
Speaker 2: the story I tell is one of Aila Stanford, who's
Speaker 2: an African American surgeon in Temple, the Temple University, and
Speaker 2: she with her own money, formed something called the Black
Speaker 2: Doctor's COVID Consortium. So with you know, many of her colleagues.
Speaker 2: She went into North Philadelphia, a predominantly black and brown
Speaker 2: community with little contact with the healthcare system other than
Speaker 2: an emergency basis, and she just sat in people's living
Speaker 2: rooms and tried to convince them of why they should
Speaker 2: get the vaccine. So they're seeing someone who looks like her,
Speaker 2: who they therefore trust, and eventually, you know, they didn't
Speaker 2: if they said no, she'd come back again, or she'd
Speaker 2: come back again, and she ultimately vaccinated fifty thousand people
Speaker 2: in North Philadelphia. She's a hero. She is an American hero.
Speaker 2: I just wish that there were a thousand Alea Stanford's
Speaker 2: who could get out there and do what she did,
Speaker 2: because I think that's the solution. I mean, yes, the
Speaker 2: CDC and the FDA should explain in detail what they're
Speaker 2: doing and why they're doing it, and yes, I think
Speaker 2: local and state government should do that, but I think
Speaker 2: that that Alas Stanford represents the solution to this problem,
Speaker 2: which is we have to find who those people are
Speaker 2: in those communities that are pressworthy and then get them
Speaker 2: the resources they need to get into those communities and
Speaker 2: tell people why vaccination is important.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I could not agree more. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the challenge with that is kind
Speaker 1: of something we've already touched on, which is the lack
Speaker 1: of training for researchers or medical professionals in how to
Speaker 1: communicate information to the public. Where you know, we learn
Speaker 1: about how vaccines work, we learn about how epidemiological studies work,
Speaker 1: how clinical trials are carried out, but we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: learn how to explain that to someone who you know
Speaker 1: isn't sitting next to us in the same classroom, or
Speaker 1: even explaining it to them. And so how do you
Speaker 1: think this these sort of opportunities can be improved upon
Speaker 1: at every level, from like training, to development of these
Speaker 1: programs to execution right, Well.
Speaker 2: I think, as always, it probably starts at the beginning.
Speaker 2: I mean, my father since past been thought in World
Speaker 2: War two, but he explained to me that as a
Speaker 2: elementary school and high school student, he was actually taught
Speaker 2: critical thinking, taught the scientific method. We often don't do
Speaker 2: that anymore. I think that would help so and I
Speaker 2: think I do think that. So. For example, if you
Speaker 2: see the CDC recently change their guidelines in terms of
Speaker 2: how long one should quarantine associated with being infected, and
Speaker 2: they said something that made a ton of sense, which
Speaker 2: is one a fabrill day. See why that makes sense
Speaker 2: to me is that the virus occurs in two stags.
Speaker 2: This is true for all viruses. But so the first
Speaker 2: thing is the virus replication stage, right, reproduce itself over
Speaker 2: and over again. Then what happens is the immune response stage,
Speaker 2: which is when you get symptoms. It's when you make
Speaker 2: antibodies against this virus or or you have cytotoxic T
Speaker 2: cells to kill virus infective cells. That's when you have symptoms. So,
Speaker 2: now as the symptoms increase, because the symptoms are based
Speaker 2: on your immune response trying to eliminate the virus, virus
Speaker 2: replication decreases. So their argument is, and it's a reasonable one,
Speaker 2: if you have one a febrill day, if you've been
Speaker 2: febrill you had fever, wouldn't make sense that the immune
Speaker 2: systems abating. And if the immune system is abating, it
Speaker 2: doesn't that tell you that virus replication is really not
Speaker 2: a critical part of the disease process anymore. So you're
Speaker 2: much less likely to be shedding virus. That makes sense
Speaker 2: rather than saying, you know, quarantine for seven days, ten days,
Speaker 2: fourteen days. Because first of all viruses don't replicate on
Speaker 2: the basis of the metric system of the lunar month,
Speaker 2: So wouldn't it make sense there's just pegg it to
Speaker 2: the person rather than to this arbitrary number. So I
Speaker 2: like that, but explain it. I mean, get out there
Speaker 2: and explain it, because else what you have then other
Speaker 2: people trying to explain it for you that may not
Speaker 2: understand it as well.
Speaker 1: I want to kind of circle back to this issue
Speaker 1: of politics and public health, and politics has been involved
Speaker 1: in public health in the US for hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: even before the US was the US. Just look back
Speaker 1: to smallpox and oculations during the American Revolutionary War, and
Speaker 1: I think that for a lot of US, the political
Speaker 1: discourse during the COVID pandemic revealed just how much public
Speaker 1: health policies are influenced by the politics of the day.
Speaker 1: As we head into this election year, what public health
Speaker 1: discussions do you think that we'll hear more about or
Speaker 1: will be central to campaign issues?
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, But I think politics has always been
Speaker 2: part of public health because public health requires resources for
Speaker 2: there will always be a political component, but there doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be a partisan component, which is what I
Speaker 2: think has happened here. I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: I fear that what's happening is that science is losing
Speaker 2: its place as a source of truth. I mean, Kelly
Speaker 2: and Conway said it best. Well, we have our alternative facts,
Speaker 2: the birth of the term alternative facts, which somehow is acceptable.
Speaker 2: And I think with that erosion in trust with science
Speaker 2: is becoming now just sort of another voice in the room.
Speaker 2: Anything is possible. And I think we just saw that.
Speaker 2: We just saw people denying the impact of this virus
Speaker 2: when one point one million people died, When three hundred
Speaker 2: thousand people lost their lives because they chose not to
Speaker 2: get vaccine, because they chose to lose their lives. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a frightening time worse. I think, you know, have
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of pieces of legislation that have pushed
Speaker 2: back on vaccine mandates, masking mandates, isolation or quarantine procedures,
Speaker 2: and vaccines. I mean, these are the important weapons in
Speaker 2: public health that are being stripped away at some level.
Speaker 2: We want freedom, but we don't want protection, and I
Speaker 2: fear that's kind of where we're heading. So what changes
Speaker 2: all this, I think again, I'm an optimist. I mean
Speaker 2: I'm a Philadelphia Eagle season ticket holder, so by definition,
Speaker 2: I'm an optimist. But I do think these things have
Speaker 2: to occur very early on where we educate people about
Speaker 2: science and educate people about, you know, how to think critically,
Speaker 2: and I think some of that is gone. I don't
Speaker 2: maybe see I think I became a better critical thinker
Speaker 2: as a scientist than when I was an MD. When
Speaker 2: I was just doing clinical work, I think I was
Speaker 2: more of an anecdotal thinker, more of a pattern recognizer.
Speaker 2: I think once I moved into a basic scientist working
Speaker 2: on rodaviruses, I think I became much better at sort
Speaker 2: of hierarchically establishing burdens of proof, well, you know, formulate
Speaker 2: a hypothesis, subjecting those proofs to analysis. I became a
Speaker 2: clearer thinker somewhere in there, but I'm not sure I've
Speaker 2: learned that in medical school.
Speaker 1: I really loved what you just said about how science
Speaker 1: being just another voice in the room. And I feel
Speaker 1: like this is a future that we have created for
Speaker 1: the past several decades where in general there's been sort
Speaker 1: of this demand for and acceptance of debate, where we
Speaker 1: need an equal sides debate where on one side is
Speaker 1: the scientific evidence and the other side is whatever agenda
Speaker 1: you know, somebody is pushing, whether that's you know, big tobacco,
Speaker 1: whether that's people who don't believe in evolution. There's this
Speaker 1: kind of false equal footing debate that doesn't really exist
Speaker 1: because the science has already been debated over decades of
Speaker 1: peer review, over decades of conferences, and basically what science
Speaker 1: actually does. And I think that we have now gotten
Speaker 1: to the point where it's not even just a two
Speaker 1: sides debate, but it's science versus a thousand different agendas.
Speaker 1: And I agree that I really worry about what that's
Speaker 1: going to look like in the future. And I feel
Speaker 1: like if we say that training students and creating these
Speaker 1: critical thinking courses in younger students, that I mean, how
Speaker 1: many generations then will it take for this to make
Speaker 1: an impact in policy. That's that's I think one of
Speaker 1: my big worries about this.
Speaker 2: You know it, this is sort of a corollary to
Speaker 2: your worry. I think science when I would do scientific
Speaker 2: studies and then go to you know, double stranded RNA meetings,
Speaker 2: you know, to present the science of working ronavirus and
Speaker 2: so you would draw a conclusion and then you would
Speaker 2: present your data, and people would challenge your data. So
Speaker 2: it's not really debating science, maybe in the way you
Speaker 2: mean it, I think, but you know, they would challenge
Speaker 2: the criteria on which you based your conclusion. Did you
Speaker 2: do that, was it internally consistent, was it was it robust?
Speaker 2: Did you do the right controls, et cetera? And that's
Speaker 2: what you you wanted that you wanted to hear that
Speaker 2: because that's how your scientific studies got better. That does
Speaker 2: not work well in a public health arena. It doesn't.
Speaker 2: And I think the best example of that for me,
Speaker 2: well two recent examples, but one is the bivalid vaccine.
Speaker 2: I mean the bivalid vaccine. Was the thinking was reasonable, right?
Speaker 2: Omicron BA one, the original omicron came into the country
Speaker 2: in December twenty twenty one. It was an immune evasive strain.
Speaker 2: Even if you'd been naturally infected or vaccinated with alpha
Speaker 2: or delta, you weren't particularly protected against mild disease from omicron.
Speaker 2: So shouldn't we include omicron in the vaccine? Perfectly reasonable?
Speaker 2: So the thinking was right, let's do a half a
Speaker 2: dose of the ancestral strain half a dose of one
Speaker 2: of the omicron variants, which became BA four BA five.
Speaker 2: Not a bad idea didn't work out. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you looked at the data that were presented to our
Speaker 2: committee in June of twenty twenty two, it didn't look
Speaker 2: like immunologically, you were more likely to develop an immune response,
Speaker 2: a neutralizing antibody response to this omicron variant if you
Speaker 2: got the monovail vaccine, if you've got the bivalid vaccine,
Speaker 2: because of imprinting. That's what happened. So I was a
Speaker 2: NOVA vote. I voted no for that. Now the next
Speaker 2: day the government bought one hundred and five million doses
Speaker 2: of Visor's vaccine. You know, but remember I'm in an
Speaker 2: advisory committee, so we just give advice, so you know,
Speaker 2: as anybody who's in medicine knows, people don't have to
Speaker 2: follow your advice. But and then the clinical studies were done.
Speaker 2: There was one in the US, one in the UK,
Speaker 2: one in France showing that you were no better off
Speaker 2: getting the buiveil vaccine their monomail vaccine. So I said that,
Speaker 2: I mean, I said that nationally. I wrote a perspective
Speaker 2: piece for the New England Journal Medicine that said that,
Speaker 2: and it was published at the same time that David
Speaker 2: Hoe in Columbia or and Dan Brooke in Harvard published
Speaker 2: their paper showing there was no difference immunologically in those
Speaker 2: two vaccines in inducing an immune response likely neutralized and
Speaker 2: protective immune response against the omicron variant. Okay, that's okay,
Speaker 2: it's okay not to get it right the first time.
Speaker 2: You learn as you go, there's always a learning curve.
Speaker 2: It's invariably steep with this kind of it's a novel virus,
Speaker 2: it's a novel vaccines strategy, it's a novel disease. We're
Speaker 2: trying to learn as we go, and so explain that
Speaker 2: we didn't get this exactly right, but we've learned, and
Speaker 2: so you don't see bivilent vaccines anymore. But that's not
Speaker 2: what we did. What we did was we kept saying
Speaker 2: it was better because we wanted it to be better.
Speaker 2: And when I was saying, you know, publicly that it's
Speaker 2: not better, not worse, boosters boost it's a value for
Speaker 2: people who are in hig risk groups. You know, I
Speaker 2: was hammered by public health officials who were really angry
Speaker 2: at me because what had I done, I'd gotten off
Speaker 2: the bus. It's a divisive time you're on the bus
Speaker 2: or you're off the bus. And they felt I mean,
Speaker 2: because we wanted people to be vaccinated, and I get that,
Speaker 2: but don't misrepresent the data because you're only going to
Speaker 2: lose trust not only the public but scientists who see
Speaker 2: what the data are. So just be honest and know
Speaker 2: that you're not going to get it right, but see
Speaker 2: that the fluidity of that, the fluidity of scientific discovery,
Speaker 2: of learning as you go, is disconcerting to the public.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think if you ask people, do you
Speaker 2: think we're going to know more about science or medicine
Speaker 2: fifty or one hundred years from now than we know now,
Speaker 2: I think everybody would say yes. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to your disease or our pandemic, they want to believe
Speaker 2: you know everything you need to know right now, and
Speaker 2: if you don't, then you got it wrong that I
Speaker 2: don't believe you anymore.
Speaker 1: I was wondering, do you have, like any tips of
Speaker 1: you're such a great science communicator, Do you have any
Speaker 1: tips for science communication that you have found over the years,
Speaker 1: like work really well or even just like general advice?
Speaker 2: Well, I think don't be afraid to explain to science.
Speaker 2: I mean when when this whole thing. There's a surgeon
Speaker 2: general in Florida. This Florida actually is one of the
Speaker 2: I think only four states actually has a surgeon general
Speaker 2: whose name is doctor Joseph Fladappo. So he's become famous
Speaker 2: for his notion that he put out there and sent
Speaker 2: something to all these sort of healthcare people in Florida
Speaker 2: that the mRNA vaccines are contaminated with DNA fragments, which,
Speaker 2: first of all, it's a manufacturing residual. It's not at
Speaker 2: all surprising anything that's made from cells, and that's certainly
Speaker 2: the plasmad DNA that is the beginning of the process
Speaker 2: of mRNA vaccines. That doesn't just completely disappear as you
Speaker 2: go through the manufacturing process. There's nanogram levels of fragmented DNA,
Speaker 2: as it is true of in any vaccine that has
Speaker 2: made from cells measles, MOPS or bella of our cellar ronavirus,
Speaker 2: all those have small fragments of DNA. And in fact,
Speaker 2: we eat foreign DNA all the time, assuming you eat
Speaker 2: anything made from plants or animals on this planet, which
Speaker 2: is pretty much everybody, which ends up in your circulation,
Speaker 2: by the way, and it fragments much larger and in
Speaker 2: quantity is much larger than here ever getting into vaccine.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so he put it out there right, DNA
Speaker 2: fragments can can essentially insert themselves into your DNA and
Speaker 2: cause cancer. So explain that. Now you can explain that.
Speaker 2: You can explain how you know the cytoplasma doesn't like
Speaker 2: foreign DNA. It's hard to get across the nuclear membrane
Speaker 2: of a non dividing cell. Well, then you have to
Speaker 2: insert yourself into DNA, which you know requires some sort
Speaker 2: of enzyme like an integrace. But so you can. So
Speaker 2: I was on CNN right with Brianna Killer, and you
Speaker 2: don't have much time. You got about four minutes to
Speaker 2: explain why Joseph Ladappo is wrong. But don't don't be
Speaker 2: afraid to do that. Try and explain the science simply.
Speaker 2: Don't just say so. The FDA, when they dealt well,
Speaker 2: this is fine, I mean this, they said, you know
Speaker 2: vaccines are carefully tested for safety, we know you know,
Speaker 2: we know that this exists. But so when they do that,
Speaker 2: when they don't express the science, explain the science, they're
Speaker 2: basically saying trust me, and and people don't trust you,
Speaker 2: so when you give them something to hang on to,
Speaker 2: even if they don't necessarily understand all those words, they
Speaker 2: like integrace. You know, an enzyme like an integrace, but
Speaker 2: it is an English sort of sounding thing, right, integrate
Speaker 2: into something. So just I say, don't be afraid of that.
Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to say that. People appreciate that. I
Speaker 2: think they appreciate not being talked down to by making
Speaker 2: it too simple.
Speaker 1: In your book, you discussed many different important lessons that
Speaker 1: we learned from the COVID pandemic. And this is a
Speaker 1: two parter. So the first is what do you think
Speaker 1: is the most important lesson that we actually did learn
Speaker 1: And what do you think was the biggest missed opportunity
Speaker 1: or the thing that we the lesson that we didn't
Speaker 1: learn or unlearned.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we learned we can make a vaccine
Speaker 2: quickly and well, and that we can distribute it quickly
Speaker 2: and well. That was good. I think that the thing
Speaker 2: that hopefully we've learned is that we need an international
Speaker 2: surveillance system. You can't depend on a whistleblower in China
Speaker 2: to tell you that there's a virus that circulating that's
Speaker 2: killing people, and China was xenophobic. They didn't let other
Speaker 2: scientists come in. That gave rise to conspiracy theories. I mean,
Speaker 2: that kind of inability to let FORNT or other researchers
Speaker 2: come in. I think it's in us. I do think
Speaker 2: as I sort of talked about the end of the book,
Speaker 2: I mean, when nine to eleven happened, we all held
Speaker 2: each other and hugged and cried. We were all in
Speaker 2: this together. I think that was also true when Pearl
Speaker 2: Harbor happened. I think we do at some level see
Speaker 2: ourselves as part of a larger group, and we have
Speaker 2: to if we're going to move forward, we have to
Speaker 2: see ourselves as part of a larger group. There's nine
Speaker 2: million people in this country who can't be vaccinated, for example,
Speaker 2: because they're immune compromise. They depend on those around them
Speaker 2: to protect them. Do we have any responsibility to them?
Speaker 2: Of course we do, and I think we have to
Speaker 2: just kind of do our best to sort of emphasize
Speaker 2: that we are part of a whole, we benefit from
Speaker 2: being part of a whole, and just make it clear
Speaker 2: that that's true. So I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think we'll see how the next the story of the
Speaker 2: next pandemic is told. But there will be a next pandemic.
Speaker 2: We've had three pandemic viruses in the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: There we're not that far from the next one.
Speaker 1: Doctor Offit, thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: to chat with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation
Speaker 1: about this rise in anti science sentiment and what we
Speaker 1: can do about it. It's definitely something that is always
Speaker 1: on my mind. And for those of you who want
Speaker 1: to know when it's over and how to navigate this
Speaker 1: post pandemic world, check out our website this podcast will
Speaker 1: kill You dot com, or I'll post a link to
Speaker 1: where you can find tell me when It's over, as
Speaker 1: well as a link to doctor Offit's website. And don't
Speaker 1: forget you can check out our website for all sourts
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Speaker 1: Speaking of which, thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the
Speaker 1: music for this episode and all of our episodes. Thank
Speaker 1: you to Leona Sculacci and Tom Bryfogel for our audio mixing,
Speaker 1: and thanks to you listeners for listening. I hope you
Speaker 1: liked this bonus episode and our loving being part of
Speaker 1: the TPWKY book Club. A special thank you, as always
Speaker 1: to our fantastic patrons. We appreciate your support so very much.
Speaker 1: We truly do well. Until next time, Keep washing those hands, U,