Speaker 1: I'm Tt and I'm Zachiah, and from Spotify. This is
Speaker 1: Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that
Speaker 1: mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: This week, we're continuing our two part series on HIV.
Speaker 1: There's just so much to cover we couldn't fit it
Speaker 1: all into one episode. Yes, and last week we really
Speaker 1: dug deep into the science behind HIV and the history
Speaker 1: of HIV vaccine development. We talked about the structure of HIV,
Speaker 1: remember the glaco proteins, and how it infects the body.
Speaker 1: We also talked about how an HIV vaccine could work
Speaker 1: and why developing an HIV vaccine is so difficult to achieve.
Speaker 1: So this week we're going to shift from the science
Speaker 1: to the people. Because we know science doesn't happen in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. Our goal is to take what we learned
Speaker 1: in part one and overlay some cultural context. Sound good,
Speaker 1: Let's get into the recitation, all right, So what do
Speaker 1: we know. Let's unpack the thing that we always say,
Speaker 1: which is that science doesn't happen in a vacuum. There
Speaker 1: are factors that determine whether or not something is science
Speaker 1: worthy or research worthy, and you have to consider what's
Speaker 1: the climate, what's the political or social climate. Is it
Speaker 1: even seen as urgent? It also depends on if a
Speaker 1: certain demographic is affected by certain diseases.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Also beyond just who's affected, is there stigma around even
Speaker 1: working on these things?
Speaker 2: Is there any type of health risk?
Speaker 1: What's understood or not understood at the time where we're
Speaker 1: trying to make discovery, all right? And there's also scientific
Speaker 1: communication that is a branch off of the science. So
Speaker 1: it's when the science is being done, when the research
Speaker 1: and development is being done, how it's communicated to the population,
Speaker 1: if at all.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's a very good point. So these are all really vague,
Speaker 1: and I think that takes us right into what we
Speaker 1: want to know. We want to know the specifics around this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which communities are affected the most by HIV and has
Speaker 1: it changed over time? And how has that affected vaccine development?
Speaker 2: Who were the.
Speaker 1: Decision makers, what was the initial guidance that affected the
Speaker 1: scientific response to HIV diagnosis, prevention, public health interventions, treatments, medicine,
Speaker 1: and eventually vaccine development. And then a question that I
Speaker 1: have is if and when the vaccine does become available
Speaker 1: What is the strategy moving forward for the scientists and
Speaker 1: the people in the medical field that will be administering
Speaker 1: these vaccines. We've already seen what happened with COVID. What's
Speaker 1: the game plan for the HIV vaccine.
Speaker 2: Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: You all know Christine doctor daniels by now. Christine recently
Speaker 1: finished her postdoc at Duke University, where she worked on
Speaker 1: developing and testing new or novel vaccine candidates. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons we really wanted to talk to Christine for
Speaker 1: this series is because of her unique background. She's not
Speaker 1: just focused on the biology of a vaccine. My background
Speaker 1: from undergrad is actually a medical anthropology. I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in how the cultural lens impacts the way people experience
Speaker 1: and treat disease. If we really want to understand the
Speaker 1: story of the HIV vaccine from all angles, we need
Speaker 1: to understand not just the science but also the culture
Speaker 1: around HIV.
Speaker 3: So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: So we're going to start with a little bit of history.
Speaker 1: In part one, we talked about a couple of different
Speaker 1: vaccine trials that show various levels of success. There was
Speaker 1: the first large scale Phase three clinical trial of VAX
Speaker 1: zero zero four in nineteen ninety eight, but that ultimately failed.
Speaker 1: And then fast forward to two thousand and three. Read
Speaker 1: the RV one four to four trial was the first
Speaker 1: clinical trial with some proven efficacy, but it was only
Speaker 1: around about thirty percent, which isn't anywhere near enough to
Speaker 1: get approval. But I mean, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, two thousand and three, isn't that twenty
Speaker 1: years after HIV was first discovered.
Speaker 4: If we think about historically HIV it's origin, people started
Speaker 4: realizing that they were infected around the seventies, but we
Speaker 4: didn't see a big push towards trying to develop treatments
Speaker 4: for it until late eighties early nineties.
Speaker 1: A's was first diagnosed in nineteen eighty one. The virus
Speaker 1: HIV was first isolated and confirmed to be the cause
Speaker 1: of AIDS in nineteen eighty three. So, yeah, nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three to two thousand and three, that's a big gap.
Speaker 1: To do these numbers justice, we really have to paint
Speaker 1: the picture of what nineteen eighty one looked like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so just picture it. It's nineteen eighty one. The number
Speaker 1: one song from the year is Betty Davis Eyes by
Speaker 1: Kim Carnes, I don't know that song, but the number
Speaker 1: two song is Endless Love by Diana Ross and lyon
Speaker 1: On Richie which we know and Lady by Kenny Rodgers.
Speaker 3: And then with movies, the top movies.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one were Indiana Jones, Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Arc, one of Our Phaves, Superman two, so that
Speaker 1: is with Christopher Reeves, and then nine to five with
Speaker 1: The Woman We Love Dolly Parton our Hero. And you know,
Speaker 1: even when you think about what did the technology look
Speaker 1: like in Superman two, right, we didn't have all these
Speaker 1: advances in technology that make it hard for us to
Speaker 1: think back to what healthcare workers and doctors had in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. Just for some additional perspective, gloves were
Speaker 1: used to protect doctor's hands back in the day, so
Speaker 1: people were using gloves in surgery, but not in other places.
Speaker 1: So not if you were getting blood drawn, not if
Speaker 1: you had like a little outpatient procedure, No gloves just
Speaker 1: out here. And when people were using gloves, it was
Speaker 1: often thought to protect doctor's hands at the onset of
Speaker 1: glove use. But then later on in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: with aids becoming more prevalent, people started using gloves more,
Speaker 1: just as like universal precautions for healthcare workers everywhere. Glove
Speaker 1: didn't become required by OSHA, which sets your occupational safety standards,
Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety two, and that was to protect workers
Speaker 1: who came in contact with body fluids. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine people didn't know what was going on. That's less
Speaker 1: than thirty years ago. Could you imagine a doctor coming
Speaker 1: towards you and being like, hey, let's take a look
Speaker 1: in that eyeball and touching your eye.
Speaker 2: No, just fingerprint to sclera. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Thank God for everyone, No way. In nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: the population in the US who tested positive for HIV
Speaker 1: was estimated to be ninety three percent male and fifty
Speaker 1: six percent white. Sixty three percent of positive cases were
Speaker 1: transmitted via male to mail sexual contact, and twenty five
Speaker 1: percent from intravenous drug use. During this time, the stigma
Speaker 1: and discrimination against those most effective, gay people and people
Speaker 1: who injected drugs was staggering, and so there wasn't a
Speaker 1: big political push to try to fund or direct research
Speaker 1: efforts towards addressing this problem because it wasn't affecting the
Speaker 1: dominant population. In fact, many people in positions of power
Speaker 1: allowed their own personal beliefs to affect their actions and
Speaker 1: responses to the HIV crisis, not only politicians, but insurance companies, researchers,
Speaker 1: drug manufacturers, doctors, and support systems like folks, family and
Speaker 1: friends who believe that the specific behaviors associated with contracting
Speaker 1: HIV were inherently wrong, and because they thought they were
Speaker 1: inherently wrong, they then considered these groups undeserving of help
Speaker 1: or of maximum effort to control the spread of HIV.
Speaker 4: It's a very controversial issue. A lot of our policy
Speaker 4: is influenced by religious beliefs. A lot of people use
Speaker 4: religion as an excuse to discriminate against certain people who
Speaker 4: have behaviors or lifestyles that they don't agree with. People
Speaker 4: are you know, I'm a Christian, so I can't support
Speaker 4: gay marriage or say anything, And that's not in the Bible.
Speaker 4: You're using the text and interpreting a certain way to
Speaker 4: push a certain agenda. And so it's not religion that
Speaker 4: it is dictating that these groups should be ostracized.
Speaker 5: It's your interpretation of that.
Speaker 1: And your interpretation is subjective. That's a choice that people make,
Speaker 1: but also everyone doesn't subscribe to the same religious beliefs,
Speaker 1: So who's to say that one section of the population
Speaker 1: gets to make the decision for everyone else? And objectively,
Speaker 1: these are human beings. We all deserve access to healthcare,
Speaker 1: secure housing, you know, the basics. The media also failed
Speaker 1: to cover the epidemic properly. During the first three years
Speaker 1: of the HIV epidemic, the New York Times only ran
Speaker 1: three stories on it, and none of them made the
Speaker 1: front page. And geography was also an issue that impeded
Speaker 1: widespread education, prevention, and treatment of HIV and AIDS. At
Speaker 1: the outset, most cases were being reported in New York
Speaker 1: and California, so lawmakers in other states were reluctant to
Speaker 1: use funds on HIV that could have been spent otherwise
Speaker 1: on roads, education or infrastructure.
Speaker 3: It sounds so much like COVID.
Speaker 1: This is that vacuum that don't exist, all these different
Speaker 1: things that affect how we digest the information and how
Speaker 1: we interact with all of these new things. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just went through media, geography, religious believe I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the outset of COVID, right, some people weren't
Speaker 1: covering it or they were saying, oh, this is only
Speaker 1: in China, it doesn't matter for the United States. And
Speaker 1: then even when it was in the United States, when
Speaker 1: it was affecting New York and California, again, our most
Speaker 1: densely populated areas in other states weren't doing the things
Speaker 1: that they needed to do, like implementing mask mandates or
Speaker 1: ramping up testing, and here we are seeing the exact
Speaker 1: same thing because they want to spend those dollars elsewhere.
Speaker 1: This is why it was so important for us to
Speaker 1: start out with the history of this virus, because you
Speaker 1: don't know where you're going if you don't know where
Speaker 1: you came from, and history often repeats itself, and so
Speaker 1: knowing the history helps us better prepare for things like
Speaker 1: this in the future. It should have helped us with COVID,
Speaker 1: but it didn't because we have chosen to stay blissfully
Speaker 1: unaware of some of these outside factors that are also
Speaker 1: playing a role.
Speaker 4: It took a lot of time for people to adopt
Speaker 4: that more inclusive mindset, and so that's stalled the focus
Speaker 4: on HIV vaccine development and treatment development, and so we
Speaker 4: didn't start to see that arise until people who didn't
Speaker 4: come from those stigmatized groups started to be infected at
Speaker 4: higher rates. Once we started seeing heterosexual white men or
Speaker 4: heterosexual women and other people that are part of the
Speaker 4: dominant culture become affected, then it became a problem. Once
Speaker 4: we started seeing celebrities become affected and high profile people
Speaker 4: start dying, then it becomes a problem that the average
Speaker 4: person cares about. Today, approximately one point two million people
Speaker 4: have HIV. That's a little under half of one percent
Speaker 4: of the US population.
Speaker 1: And that percentage is disproportionately higher among marginalized groups, including
Speaker 1: sex workers, trans people, and people of color.
Speaker 2: But we also know that we have some blind spots.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to know and understand that statistics
Speaker 1: don't paint a full picture. Data is helpful to see
Speaker 1: overall trends, but most data is incomplete. Some of these
Speaker 1: statistics and the way that some of these numbers are
Speaker 1: put together, you have to take them all with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. There are so many factors that go
Speaker 1: into how the data is collected. Do people feel comfortable
Speaker 1: with disclosing this information? Who are they asking, how are
Speaker 1: they asking? Are the questions clear? And it gets even
Speaker 1: more complicated when you start to go down into marginalized communities,
Speaker 1: Black folks people who are living with disabilities, people in
Speaker 1: the LGBTQIA community, all of these populations, they've been excluded
Speaker 1: from so many of these conversations. It's been used to
Speaker 1: violate them in the past. Disclosing meant loss of jobs, Disclosing.
Speaker 3: Meant social stigma. It completely changes your life.
Speaker 1: That provides a lot more context t t about why
Speaker 1: we see sex workers or trans people or people of
Speaker 1: color with higher rates of HIV in these slices of
Speaker 1: the population because they have higher risks. These categories aren't
Speaker 1: biological and so when you see these things come together
Speaker 1: because of social influences, and these types of gaps can
Speaker 1: potentially lead to problems where people affected the most are
Speaker 1: excluded or misrepresented in studies. Another thing that's changed a
Speaker 1: lot since nineteen eighty one is that there has been
Speaker 1: a lot more education and media coverage. Yes, movies and
Speaker 1: TV shows have evolved in terms of the stories that
Speaker 1: they tell about people living with HIV. One that I've
Speaker 1: been really enjoying lately is It's a Sin on HBO Max,
Speaker 1: which tells the story of the early eighties and the
Speaker 1: identification of AIDS and that it leads to HIV from
Speaker 1: the perspective of a group of friends living in I
Speaker 1: think they're in London, and you see how they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this is only issue if you sleep with American boys.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: And that was the framework and the mindset, which doesn't
Speaker 1: feel that different from this is only an issue if
Speaker 1: you traveled to China with COVID. Remember in the real
Speaker 1: world when Pedro Zamora, that was my first introduction to someone.
Speaker 1: He's not a fictional character that had HIV and they
Speaker 1: were showing him on television, and I felt like his
Speaker 1: story really impacted what people generally thought about folks with
Speaker 1: HIV and really humanized that population a lot.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: I remember that movie with Denzel Washington called Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: Yes, another really good one. I loved that movie.
Speaker 1: Well known celebrities, including Billy Porter and Jonathan van Ness
Speaker 1: have recently talked openly about their HIV diagnoses.
Speaker 4: Now, all of a sudden, there's all of these campaigns
Speaker 4: and committees and small organizations that are leading efforts to
Speaker 4: try to devote attention and funding and resources towards addressing
Speaker 4: this problem.
Speaker 5: But the problem wasn't new.
Speaker 4: The problem has been there, it just wasn't pushed to
Speaker 4: the forefront of attention, and so that's kind of what
Speaker 4: stalled the efforts. Let's take a break and when we
Speaker 4: come back, we'll keep talking about why it's taken so
Speaker 4: long to develop an HIV vaccine. We're back and we
Speaker 4: want to tell you about our lab for next week.
Speaker 4: Next week, we're celebrating the end of twenty twenty one
Speaker 4: with our annual end of the year mixtape. We'll be
Speaker 4: talking about the biggest moments from twenty twenty one and
Speaker 4: doing a mini dissection on each of them.
Speaker 1: And in January, we're really excited about a four part
Speaker 1: series we're doing all about wellness, self care and how
Speaker 1: to brush up on your habits in the new year,
Speaker 1: and we want you to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: We want to know your new year's resolutions for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Are you making a list or did you
Speaker 1: skip resolutions altogether?
Speaker 3: What are you focusing on? We want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight and leave us a message. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get back to the dissection. In the first part of
Speaker 1: the dissection discussed some of the social and behavioral context
Speaker 1: around who is predominantly affected by AHIV, and so now
Speaker 1: it all makes sense as to why it's been an
Speaker 1: uphill battle to developing AHIV vaccine. So at the onset,
Speaker 1: you have people who feel like this isn't worth investing in,
Speaker 1: from our political leaders to big corporations, and we saw
Speaker 1: what it took for something that affected everybody for us
Speaker 1: to get things going just in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Imagine.
Speaker 1: Also, what we're talking about is nineteen eighties science. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: science with acid wash genes.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many advances you can make with
Speaker 1: acid wash gens and all that hairspray and all that hairspray.
Speaker 1: But you got to give these scientists credit. Okay, they
Speaker 1: continue to work on this and work on this. Just
Speaker 1: to give you some perspective. In the early stages, so
Speaker 1: like around nineteen eighty five, I think that's when they
Speaker 1: first had the like official HIV diagnostic test. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we're talking about nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty five
Speaker 1: with no standard test, right, these are people observing symptoms
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what could possibly be going
Speaker 1: on in these different patients. That first test, the way
Speaker 1: it was designed, you could get a non reactive kind
Speaker 1: of like negative test result. That negative window was eight
Speaker 1: to ten weeks after exposure, So you needed to wait
Speaker 1: at least ten weeks after exposure or potential exposure for
Speaker 1: you to be able to say confidently negative or positive.
Speaker 1: That's a long time.
Speaker 3: That is a very very long time.
Speaker 1: So fast forward, I mean, now that's not the case anymore, right,
Speaker 1: But so from nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety one
Speaker 1: they got that down from eight to ten weeks to
Speaker 1: tests that only had a two to three week window.
Speaker 1: It's mind boggling to me that they were able to
Speaker 1: make that type of progress without the tools that we
Speaker 1: have available right now.
Speaker 3: All they had were traffer keepers. You can put in
Speaker 3: your lab notes in a Traffer keeper.
Speaker 1: And so what we also have to consider is what
Speaker 1: population or what group of the population was most affected
Speaker 1: by HIV and are these the same people who are
Speaker 1: making decisions about drugs, treatment policy, public health support? Are
Speaker 1: those the people making the decisions around HIV? And Christine
Speaker 1: says that representation in those spaces is absolutely crucial.
Speaker 4: When you think about from a research standpoint, the people
Speaker 4: that are in a position to decide the questions that
Speaker 4: research don't look like the populations that are affected. So
Speaker 4: if those people aren't in the room, they can't direct
Speaker 4: the questions, and so we see a lot more research
Speaker 4: funding or research done on things that impact the dominant culture,
Speaker 4: such as breast cancer, instead of things like sickle cell
Speaker 4: that affect predominantly African Americans or minorities. So we have
Speaker 4: the funding issue, we also have the representation issue. If
Speaker 4: we're not in the room, we can't drive the conversation,
Speaker 4: we can't direct it.
Speaker 1: Doctor Daniel's identity is inastricably linked to her work. Diseases
Speaker 1: she chooses to research are the ones that most frequently
Speaker 1: impact people who share her identity.
Speaker 4: I personally don't think you can separate the two. Well,
Speaker 4: I can't because of my identity. I am a black woman,
Speaker 4: and so the way I approach research, the way I
Speaker 4: think about the questions that I'm researching, is always going
Speaker 4: to be influenced by my identity, and so the diseases
Speaker 4: I choose to research are typically diseases that more frequently
Speaker 4: impact people with my identity or similar identities. Christine saw
Speaker 4: the disparities and how they can affect decisions that are
Speaker 4: made firsthand when COVID started and when the COVID pandemic
Speaker 4: first started, we were in these multi day symposiums working force,
Speaker 4: just trying to understand what was going on. So, what's
Speaker 4: infecting these people, how is it happening, how is it spreading,
Speaker 4: what do we do to contain it, how do we
Speaker 4: treat it, how is it working, and things like that,
Speaker 4: and who do we prioritize. And in one of them,
Speaker 4: race only came up one time because a person asked
Speaker 4: about the prevalence amongst minority communities. The person said that
Speaker 4: because African Americans have higher rates of obesity and hypertension,
Speaker 4: that that's why it's more prevalent amongst us, and that's
Speaker 4: why we're dying because we have all these pre existing conditions,
Speaker 4: and that was it.
Speaker 1: If you're not acknowledging the context in which people are
Speaker 1: living when talking about pre existing conditions, you're not painting
Speaker 1: the full picture.
Speaker 3: You're not telling the whole story.
Speaker 1: Race is not a biological category, So we're talking about
Speaker 1: things like access to good healthcare, socioeconomic status, even things.
Speaker 3: Like your ability to social distance. Not everybody can do that.
Speaker 1: Your housing conditions or the type of job you have
Speaker 1: might make it impossible for you to do that. One
Speaker 1: thing Christine talked about that was really interesting was that
Speaker 1: disparities and representation can also lead to disparities in terms
Speaker 1: of technology and access. I worry we're developing more and
Speaker 1: more high tech technologies because we can, but we won't
Speaker 1: be able to actually benefit the people who need it
Speaker 1: the most because now it's cost prohibitive, because so much
Speaker 1: money goes into developing them that now it won't be
Speaker 1: marketed at a price point that the people who needed
Speaker 1: it most, the people who was designed for, can benefit
Speaker 1: from it.
Speaker 4: Do you have to be in a hospital to get
Speaker 4: administered this? How feasible is it for someone to go
Speaker 4: and get competitive doses of something? I don't think that
Speaker 4: scientists think enough about who they're trying.
Speaker 1: To help, and that's something that we're seeing with COVID right.
Speaker 1: One of the things was that the vaccine had to
Speaker 1: be refrigerated. And which countries can afford to buy these therapies.
Speaker 1: That's important.
Speaker 3: That's such a good point.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the point of a treatment if only
Speaker 1: the top one percent can afford the drug? We talked
Speaker 1: about prep in part one of the series and how
Speaker 1: it's an effective preventative drug for HIV, but.
Speaker 3: We didn't mention the cost. A thirty day supply of
Speaker 3: PREP costs one thousand, seven hundred and fifty eight dollars.
Speaker 3: That means annually it could add up to over twenty
Speaker 3: one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: In July of this year, the federal government passed the
Speaker 3: law mandating insurers to cover PREP drugs one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: including clinic visits associated with PREP. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2: That's huge. Yeah, And the CDC just released new guidelines.
Speaker 1: Right and it added a recommendation to doctors to inform
Speaker 1: all sexually active adults and adolescents about PREP. I think
Speaker 1: that's going to go a long way in raising awareness
Speaker 1: and reducing stigma.
Speaker 5: Scientists care about the science.
Speaker 4: They want the coolest technology and the most high tech thing,
Speaker 4: But people from different identities think about them and think
Speaker 4: about how would this work, Like would my friend cousin's
Speaker 4: sister mother actually be able to use this?
Speaker 5: I think about this a lot in terms of cancer.
Speaker 4: I think about how much money will go into funding
Speaker 4: a drug that will extend the life of a cancer
Speaker 4: that already has a pretty fair prognosis, versus you know,
Speaker 4: studying one where people have less options.
Speaker 1: When we get into conversations about race relations or the
Speaker 1: experience of people of color in America. There are some
Speaker 1: people who, while you're in that conversation, they say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just playing Devil's advocate. And to that, I really
Speaker 1: like to quote Quinta Brunson, and I say, go play
Speaker 1: Devil's advocate. In hell, we're talking about somebody's ability to live,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, we're talking about life,
Speaker 1: someone's life. We're talking about safety. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: safety of people's family, of their friends, their closest people,
Speaker 1: their loved ones, and everything like that. So for you,
Speaker 1: it might just be a mental exercise and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just strengthening this debate muscle that I have or whatever.
Speaker 3: But for some people, it's life or death.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: And I think if there's one thing we've learned, it
Speaker 1: is how important the introduction or rollout of any effective
Speaker 1: treatment is to whether or not it gets even considered
Speaker 1: by folks, right, whether folks are even willing to talk
Speaker 1: about it, think about taking it, let alone, take it
Speaker 1: as recommend it right. So I think that's something we've
Speaker 1: learned from COVID, and we got to figure out how
Speaker 1: is this going to work when an effective HIV vaccine
Speaker 1: does arrive. We've seen the pitfalls of a bumpy vaccine
Speaker 1: rollout this past year with COVID. There's been a ton
Speaker 1: of misinformation around the vaccine, and you can hear more
Speaker 1: about that in Lab thirty seven called in Denial. We
Speaker 1: wanted to know from Christine what kinds of barriers she
Speaker 1: anticipates once an HIV vaccine does hit the market. HIV
Speaker 1: is an STD, so already you're going to have opposition
Speaker 1: because people don't like to think about sex or sexual transmit.
Speaker 5: Diseases and youth.
Speaker 4: And so in order for U to get widespread population,
Speaker 4: as what we've seen with COVID, we have to get
Speaker 4: children vaccinated too, And so I see opposition for parents
Speaker 4: not wanting their children to get something that's associated with
Speaker 4: sex because they think that that might encourage them to
Speaker 4: have sex, and that's not the case.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: We saw this with the HPV vaccine.
Speaker 1: HPV is a very common and highly transmittable STD that's
Speaker 1: linked to many types of cancer, including ninety percent of
Speaker 1: cervical cancer. Doctors recommended getting the twudose vaccine and adolescence,
Speaker 1: but many parents were hesitant. And it's not just because
Speaker 1: it's an STD, it's also because of misinformation in general.
Speaker 4: The other opposition, again, I would say, is vaccine hesitancy broadly,
Speaker 4: not speaking about just African Americans or Hispanics or anyone population,
Speaker 4: but just people who don't think vaccines work. They base
Speaker 4: their belief in the ability of a vaccine to work
Speaker 4: on the flu vaccine, which doesn't reach the level of
Speaker 4: efficacy that we see with the COVID nineteen vaccine, and
Speaker 4: that's for different reasons. I mean, there's multiple circulating strains
Speaker 4: and you taste faster things like that that affect its efficacy.
Speaker 4: But there's so many people that have this narrative of
Speaker 4: I got the vaccine for flu and I still got sick,
Speaker 4: or I never get the vaccine and I never get sick,
Speaker 4: And this.
Speaker 2: Is really interesting. You know.
Speaker 1: We talked about this in our vaccine episode of Protection
Speaker 1: Neck Lab four about one of my friends who's a virologist, yes,
Speaker 1: who told me he would not go to dinner with
Speaker 1: me until I had my flu vaccine. And we went
Speaker 1: right over to the right eight and I got a
Speaker 1: flu vaccine and then we walked back into town for dinner.
Speaker 2: And maybe we need you need like that. We all
Speaker 2: need York friends like Greg.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Greg.
Speaker 1: And it does feel like there have been a lot
Speaker 1: more people talking about flu shots this year.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think people feel a lot more comfortable with getting
Speaker 1: a flu shot now that we've been in this pandemic
Speaker 1: and been away from people and masking and social distancing.
Speaker 1: I think that the folks that were not likely to
Speaker 1: get a flu vaccine are now a lot more likely
Speaker 1: to get it.
Speaker 4: You also have people from these very privileged backgrounds who
Speaker 4: had promoted this idea that they don't need to vaccinate
Speaker 4: their children because they don't know what's in it, because
Speaker 4: it'll leave autism. There's all of these false narratives and
Speaker 4: myths and misconceptions about vaccines that also creates opposition. Another
Speaker 4: point Christine made is that when it comes to this
Speaker 4: anti vaxed narrative, we really need to pay attention to
Speaker 4: the cultural context, because some people are quick to be
Speaker 4: labeled as anti vacs, while others have the luxury of
Speaker 4: being labeled curious.
Speaker 2: And it's way more complicated than that.
Speaker 4: I just don't like the vaccine has a tensing narrative.
Speaker 4: I just think it's inherently problematic. It's an oversimplification of
Speaker 4: legitimate concerns that are based in history and evidence. I
Speaker 4: hate that that narrative is attributed to people who ask
Speaker 4: questions when they are for certain race or a particular group.
Speaker 4: When white people ask questions, it's, oh, you know, they
Speaker 4: just want to be more informed. When black people ask
Speaker 4: questions like, oh, they're has and they apply it to
Speaker 4: all vaccines, and I just think it's really problem and
Speaker 4: it's not true.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of nuance there that's important to recognize,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to approaching those curious about vaccines,
Speaker 1: it's really important to meet people where they are and
Speaker 1: do so on a case by case basis.
Speaker 2: So how do we do that?
Speaker 1: What can scientists, doctors, and educators do to help more
Speaker 1: people understand what goes into the vaccine if.
Speaker 4: We want people to take the vaccine. As scientists, we
Speaker 4: need to do a better job of removing the veil
Speaker 4: between the public and the science. The public pays our salaries,
Speaker 4: they pay for the science. The tax payers fund this research,
Speaker 4: and so I feel that they are entitled to the
Speaker 4: information of what happens with those funds, and so as scientists,
Speaker 4: I think we don't do a good job of coming
Speaker 4: forward and saying what we're doing or what the story is.
Speaker 4: As scientists, our job is to present data, to get data,
Speaker 4: explore questions, determine answers in an accurate and reproducible way.
Speaker 4: And so if we want that to be conveyed, then
Speaker 4: we as scientists have to be the people communicating that
Speaker 4: information in the way that we want it to be received.
Speaker 4: And that's true for HIV, but it's also going to
Speaker 4: be true for some other great developments we've seen.
Speaker 2: With the malaria vaccine, Yes, that is huge.
Speaker 1: Malaria is a disease that's transmitted through mosquitoes and it
Speaker 1: has been really devastating in a lot of different countries,
Speaker 1: and so a malario vaccine has now been approved.
Speaker 3: This is going to change the lives of so many people.
Speaker 1: And this is also going to be important not just
Speaker 1: for malaria globally, but also for the dingay vaccine den Vaccia,
Speaker 1: which was approved by the FDA in twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: has some updates to its use in June twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I love that we separated this into two parts because
Speaker 1: it really helped us to be able to explore all
Speaker 1: of the contextual social aspects of the HIV vaccine and
Speaker 1: the history of HIV in this country.
Speaker 3: I learned so so much.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a great example.
Speaker 1: It would not be accurate, fair anything to tell this
Speaker 1: story that's only about glycoproteins and only about the latest
Speaker 1: platform for designing small nanoparticles.
Speaker 2: That's not the full story, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's only right to say that the identity
Speaker 1: of the group's affected influence the response, influence how much
Speaker 1: funding gets put towards prevention and public health efforts. I
Speaker 1: love how Christine mentioned religion and how societal values at
Speaker 1: a specific time can influence the urgency that's considered when
Speaker 1: we see people dying, and we see that right now,
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of conversation around whether or not
Speaker 1: it matters about who's going to the hospital if they're
Speaker 1: not vaccinated. Hey, we want everybody to live, okay, And
Speaker 1: so I think it's.
Speaker 2: Just like a slippery slope.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you have to know your history or
Speaker 1: else you're bound to repeat it. And I know human
Speaker 1: evolution is not happening that fast.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: We are the same people in nineteen eighty as we
Speaker 1: are in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yes, don't fool yourself, but I.
Speaker 1: Do love the increased awareness. You know, we're seeing more conversations,
Speaker 1: we're seeing more efforts. You know, you mentioned some of
Speaker 1: the things you see in TV celebrities using their platforms.
Speaker 1: We talked about movies, you know, I said Philadelphia, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if it still holds up. That was
Speaker 1: in the nineties, right, But there are some really great
Speaker 1: TV shows that are out right now that center around
Speaker 1: people who are living with HIV.
Speaker 2: Two shows, so there's pose.
Speaker 1: And then I think I mentioned earlier it's a sim
Speaker 1: which is a historical perspective taking us back to the
Speaker 1: eighties with the hairspray and the asset wash genes, but
Speaker 1: from the lens of a different country, and we really
Speaker 1: get to see how geography plays a role. And then
Speaker 1: another great thing is that doctor Daniels gave us some
Speaker 1: book recommendations if you want to learn more, and we're
Speaker 1: going to have that in the show notes, So make
Speaker 1: sure you head over to dope lauspodcast dot com to
Speaker 1: look at those because I am definitely adding all of
Speaker 1: those books to my lists of books that I'm going
Speaker 1: to be reading. All Right, it's time for one thing, Zakiya,
Speaker 1: what's your one thing? My one thing this week is
Speaker 1: ground Truths, which is a newsletter from doctor Eric Topole.
Speaker 1: He's a physician but does a lot of translational medicine
Speaker 1: and I am loving it. It's Eric Topole so E
Speaker 1: R I C T O P O L dot substack
Speaker 1: dot com, It's COVID Updates. I really like it because
Speaker 1: it's straight off the press. He's a scientist, he's looking
Speaker 1: at some of the latest stuff from other scientists, and
Speaker 1: he's just telling it like it is, yes, pay attention
Speaker 1: to this or nope, we have to take this with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt, like is omicron ominous? You know,
Speaker 1: like it's just really breaking it down. There are charts
Speaker 1: and grabs.
Speaker 2: You know. I love that.
Speaker 1: Yes, my one thing this week is Masterclass. So I
Speaker 1: feel like everybody has seen an ad for master Class
Speaker 1: at some point with you know, some of their favorite
Speaker 1: directors or writers, and so I took the plunge and
Speaker 1: actually got a subscription to Masterclass. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: an app, but you can log in on your desktop
Speaker 1: and they have master classes for everything from you know,
Speaker 1: people who have been leading in their fields so on
Speaker 1: wilderness survival. Filmmaking athlete Steph Curry has done a masterclass
Speaker 1: real Estate, graphic Design, Gardening, Barbecue and they're long because
Speaker 1: they separated into segments and it's really well put together
Speaker 1: and it's not just some random person who is interested
Speaker 1: in writing and doing television.
Speaker 3: They have Isa Ray doing a master class.
Speaker 2: Right, what's been your favorite one so far?
Speaker 3: Definitely the one with Ray.
Speaker 1: She's so funny and she gets insight into how she
Speaker 1: does a lot of things and like how things started
Speaker 1: in the way that she's able to develop a story
Speaker 1: and develop characters and how she minds in her real
Speaker 1: life for character plots and things like that.
Speaker 3: So it was really really good. Yeah, they got Samuel L.
Speaker 1: Jackson on there, they got Gordon Ramsay on there, Alicia
Speaker 1: Keys and another thing that I really love about masterclass,
Speaker 1: so you can go to masterclass dot com to check
Speaker 1: that out, is that you can give it as a gift.
Speaker 1: So if you have a friend that's really interested in gardening,
Speaker 1: or really interested in spices, or really interested in cocktails,
Speaker 1: like my friend, you can take that one masterclass and
Speaker 1: you can send it to them and it's such a
Speaker 1: good gift. I did that for Jimmy, I sent him
Speaker 1: a barbecue one for I think it was his birthday
Speaker 1: last year, and it's so fun and it's such a
Speaker 1: great thoughtful gift. So masterclass dot com. Was that a
Speaker 1: gift for Jimmy or a gift for you? Because I
Speaker 1: know how you like barbecue?
Speaker 3: It was a gift for me because guess what I
Speaker 3: got ribs that weekend? Brush off the grill.
Speaker 2: That's it for Lab forty three. What did you think?
Speaker 2: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight.
Speaker 1: And let us know and don't forget. There's so much
Speaker 1: more for you to dig into on our website. There'll
Speaker 1: be a cheat sheet for today's lab, additional links and
Speaker 1: resources in the show notes. Plus you can sign up
Speaker 1: for our newsletter check it out at Dope lasspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our amazing guest expert for this two
Speaker 1: part series, Doctor Christine Daniels. Dope Labs is a Spotify
Speaker 1: original production from Mega owned Media Group. Our producers are
Speaker 1: Jenny ratlit Mask and Lydia Smith of WaveRunner Studios. Editing
Speaker 1: in sound design by Rob Smerciak, mixing by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex.
Speaker 2: Suguer from Spotify.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Gina Delvak, and creative producers are
Speaker 1: Baron Farmer and Candace Manriquez Rinn. Special thanks to Shirley
Speaker 1: ramos yasmin of Fifi, camu Elolia, Till krat Key and
Speaker 1: Brian Marquis. Executive producers from Mega Own Media Group are
Speaker 1: Us T. T Show Dia and Zakiah Wattler. Do y'all
Speaker 1: remember that when Joe Big at like Apple and Starbucks
Speaker 1: and Bono was.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm like Bono was, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, same thing. Isn't the same person? Who's Who's bon Jovi?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: They're all red hot chili peppers.
Speaker 3: Come on, it's all Bruce Springsteen, you know.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm