back to indexAlbert Bourla: Pfizer CEO | Lex Fridman Podcast #249
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The following is a conversation with Albert Berla, CEO of Pfizer.
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If you'd like to skip ahead to our conversation, the timestamps as always are below.
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But if not, please allow me to say a few words about truth and human nature.
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Specifically, about two groups of people throughout history that seek to lay claim to the truth.
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The first group will tell you that only they possess the truth,
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and that the government will save you, the company will save you, the science, the authorities, the experts, the institutions will save you.
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The second group, too, will tell you that only they possess the truth,
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and that the government will hurt you, the company will hurt you, the science, the authorities, the experts, the institutions will hurt you.
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Both groups have the benevolent and the malevolent, their heroes and their charlatans.
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And I think the hard truth is that no one in this world can tell you with absolute certainty which is which.
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You have to use your mind.
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This is the burden of being human, of being free.
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Don't blindly follow any leader, neither the emperor nor the martyr who points out that the emperor has no clothes.
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And then there's the lessons of history.
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Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives in the past century,
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and in general, the advance of medicine has saved billions of lives.
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If you ignore the power of science, you're not being honest with the lessons of history.
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And if you ignore the corrupting nature of power and money within institutions,
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including governments and companies that led to the suffering and death of hundreds of millions in the past century,
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you are once again not being honest with the lessons of history.
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I announced that I will be having this conversation with Albert Burla, Pfizer CEO, and a lot of people wrote to me.
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I would like to say that I was and am and always will be listening and learning with an open mind from everyone.
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My own opinion, worth little as it is, is that the development of the COVID vaccines is one of the greatest accomplishments of science in recent history.
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For the rest, from safety and efficacy to policy and economics,
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I stand humbled before a complicated world full of fear and anger.
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A small number of malicious people from all walks of life will use that fear and anger to divide us,
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because the division makes them money and gives them power.
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I took two shots of the Pfizer vaccine.
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This was my decision.
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I don't ever want to force this on anyone, and I certainly don't want to dismiss your concerns or worse,
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you as a person if you choose not to get vaccinated.
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I can assure you one thing, in this conversation, and in any conversation,
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the choice of questions I ask and words I say is mine and mine alone.
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When my words fall short, as they often do, it is only because of the limitations of my mind and of my speaking ability.
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It is not due to pressure or fear.
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I'm not afraid of anyone.
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I cannot be bought by anyone with money, power, or fame.
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I hope to prove this to you and to myself in the coming years.
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This life is short, and to me, without integrity, it is not worth living.
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People sometimes talk down to me, call me naive.
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Perhaps they are right, but it is who I am.
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I think this life, this world, this, our human civilization is beautiful.
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And as Dostoevsky said, beauty will save the world.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here's my conversation with Albert Borla.
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The development of the COVID 19 vaccine was one of the greatest accomplishments of science in recent history.
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No matter what, this should give people hope for the future.
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And yet, it is more of a source of division.
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I hope we can discuss both the inspiring and the difficult ideas in this conversation
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so that we can do our small part in healing this division.
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Take me through the day of November 8th, 2020,
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when the Pfizer team were waiting for the results of the phase three clinical trials.
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We had assembled in a very small office that we are having in Connecticut, very few people.
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There were five, I think.
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And in another place, what we call the Data Monitoring Committee,
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which is a group of experts, independent experts, they're on Pfizer,
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we're going to have the opportunity to unblind the data
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and then tell us if the study needs to continue or if it is successful or if it fails.
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And we were waiting for their call.
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So the call came a little bit later than what we expected,
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which created a lot of anxiety to all of us, but came around, I think, two o clock.
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You're just sitting there waiting? What were you feeling?
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Sitting there waiting and teasing one another, drinking coffee, making jokes.
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So how did you feel like when you heard the results, the successful results?
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Free, liberated, happy.
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Like if a huge weight that was on my shoulders was lifted.
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I heard you said, I love you to the team.
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I did. This is how we speak in Mediterranean.
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Listen, maybe it's the Russian thing too.
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I love love, so I appreciate that kind of celebration.
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So looking back from that moment to before,
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how much did it cost to develop the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine?
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What was it like making the decision to make that investment
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when the risk is very high and you don't know if it's going to be successful?
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You know, we do a lot of that anyway.
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This is what we do in our daily work.
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We are putting money.
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We are investing in research, which is highly risky.
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The difference in that case was that we didn't risk at all.
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We put everything in one go so that we don't lose time.
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Usually, we will spend 50 millions.
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And then if that goes well, then we will spend another 50.
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And then if it goes well, then 100.
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Here, we put all together a little bit more than $2 billion, $2.3 billion.
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And it was a significant decision.
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But it was a very easy decision to make in the context of what
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we were living at that time.
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It was a pandemic.
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People were scared.
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We didn't know how tomorrow would look like.
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We were living unprecedented situations.
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And we knew that we have capabilities that may help.
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So there was not a second question or choice.
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When you make decisions like that, you're
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the CEO of a company that needs to make money
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and that hopes to do a lot of good in the world.
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How much of both of those things are part of the calculation?
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So when you said it was an obvious choice,
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I think you've said a bunch of things of the kind of saying
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we need to go all in, sort of very boldly diving in.
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How much was that the world is facing uncertainty and fear
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and potentially destructive pandemic in the early days,
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just when you're seeing the full uncertainty before us,
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don't know how it's going to unroll?
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And how much of it is this may also
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be a good financial decision to take this risk?
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Yeah, I think about it all the time.
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And I know very well that if you focus too much on making money,
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you will never make.
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You should focus in what is the real value driver.
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And the real value driver, it is to make breakthroughs
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that change patients lives.
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If you don't do that, you will never make money.
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If you do that, don't worry.
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Things will fall into place, and also money will follow.
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But the mentality of the company is
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to be how to help the patient.
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And that's what the management was that the shareholders want,
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because that's the only way that we can create value.
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In this particular case, we're not
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thinking at all about what are we
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going to make when we sell it or if we don't sell it.
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Because what we were focusing 100%
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was how to bring a solution to the world that
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will help all of us change the fear that
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was bringing hope to the world.
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And as always, when you do that, you
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will have good returns as well.
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On a philosophical level, on a human level,
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do you ever worry that the pressure
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to cover the costs that were invested,
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to develop a new drug, to develop this vaccine,
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harms your ability to conduct unbiased studies?
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Not at all, because the studies are highly regulated.
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Everybody knows what regulators, and when
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I say regulators, FDA, European authorities, UK authorities,
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Israeli authorities, Japanese authorities, Canadian
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authorities, want to see how the study needs to be conducted
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and what exactly they need to see to approve it or not.
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So clearly, everybody takes into consideration
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how much money I'm going to invest
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and what is the chances that I'm going to lose them.
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But what you can do is to change the rules of the game
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so that you won't lose the money.
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There are very well established methodologies
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that would say with very high precision
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if your medicine is effective, if your medicine is safe.
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And those are there for all and are
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playing with the same rules.
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Do you have an intuition about why
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is the FDA trying to get 75 years to release the Pfizer
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They're trying to request that it will not
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be released for 75 years.
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And then maybe the broader version of that question
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is do you think people should have
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sort of full transparency and immediate access to the data,
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immediate on the scale of weeks, not years?
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I think the relations with regulators,
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they have been always very transparent.
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And there are a lot of laws that they
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are forcing regulators and companies
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to put out their interactions and what exactly was discussed.
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Now, to go into specific details of some discussions,
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I don't know what is the reason that FDA
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wants to take the time.
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And I'm sure they have very good reasons.
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Well, let me just say my side of it.
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It doesn't look like a good reason.
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It looks like maybe it's because I come from the Soviet Union.
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Now, this is not you saying this.
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This is me saying this.
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There seems to be a bureaucracy that
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gets in the way of transparency.
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That's always the challenge with government.
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So government is very good at setting rules and making
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sure there's oversight of companies and people and so on.
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But they create, they slow things down,
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which is a feature and a bug.
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And in this case, they slow down so much.
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I think the reason they set it at 75 years
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is because they set a rate of being
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able to only review 500 pages of data a day
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or something like that.
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And that's a very kind of bureaucratic thing,
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where in reality, you could just show the data.
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And it's not like something is being hidden.
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But in the battle to win people's trust,
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to inspire them with science, it feels
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like transparency is one of the most beautiful things, one
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of the most powerful things that the FDA has.
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FDA has the potential to be one of the great institutions
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And this is one example that it feels, to me, like a failure.
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So in your perspective, you're saying,
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I'm sure they have a good reason.
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So to you, the FDA is this black box
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that you submit things to once they approve.
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You know that those are the rules.
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But this is not a black box.
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We know very well what is the process.
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Everybody knows very well what are the processes.
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The review process also, it is very detailed.
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They have scientists of very, very high caliber.
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Not every regulator in the world,
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but the Europeans, the BRIDs, the FDA clearly,
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they have very, very high caliber of scientists
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that they are going into a lot of details.
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And also, basically everything for a study
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is really released by law in the specifications
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of the product, but it's a very detailed document
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that it is issued and has basically the essence
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of everything that was discussed.
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I don't know about specific documents
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if take them time to release,
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but clearly this is not a black box type of process.
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A lot of this stuff is how do you effectively communicate
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to the world about the incredible science that's been done,
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about the processes that were followed.
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And then sometimes it's just in eloquence in communication.
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It's not that there's a failure process.
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It's in eloquence of communication and silence.
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Silence in the moment when clearly a lot of people
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are bothered and have questions.
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This is when you speak out and you explain exactly why
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as opposed to letting the sort of distrust build up
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and linger because the result is there's a very large
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percentage of the population that just,
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I mean, it divides people and science suffers, I think.
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And also the effectiveness of solutions suffers
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like the vaccine and so on.
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I asked a few folks I know
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if they had challenging questions for you.
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I'm sure many of them answered your call.
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Yeah, many friendly folks out there.
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By the way, I'm sweating not because this is a difficult
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conversation, it is, but it's also hot in here
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So one of the folks is Mr. Jordan Peterson.
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I don't know if you know who that is.
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He's a psychologist and intellectual and author.
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He suggested to me that I raised the concern
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that there's a close working relationship
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between Pfizer, FDA, and CDC.
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So we talked about FDA.
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Do you worry that this affects both positive and negative
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Pfizer's chances of getting drugs approved?
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The fact that there's people that worked at the FDA
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that now work at Pfizer, Pfizer, FDA,
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that there's a kind of pipeline.
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Does this worry you that it affects your ability
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to do great, unbiased work?
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I have zero doubts that this is not affecting at all
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their ability to be unbiased and regulate.
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And in order to, for the system also reinforces that
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by creating significant time barriers.
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If someone moves from an industry to FDA,
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she won't be able to deal with topics for a period of time.
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And then for even an enhanced period of time
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with topics that are related with a company
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he or she may come from.
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I think these regulators, they are really very strict.
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If anything, I feel sometimes that maybe they should
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be a little bit more open minded,
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particularly when it comes to new technologies,
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rather than trying to judge and implement the same
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framework of variation of new technologies to all.
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They are always as regulators in the conservative side.
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But always, always, they are unbiased
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and they are trying the best.
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And it's not only one or two people.
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They have processes to make sure that there are self checks
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and balances within the agencies,
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both in CDC and in the FDA.
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Difficult decisions, they bring external experts
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that they should express.
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Easy decisions, they are internal experts
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that they are debating a lot.
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And if there are disagreements, they elevate them.
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So I think we are lucky to have good regulators.
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I think I agree with what you said before,
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as with all governmental agencies, there is bureaucracy.
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And the bureaucracy needs to be addressed.
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And by saying bureaucracy is not relaxing the bar.
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The bar needs to remain high.
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But focusing on what matters rather than on the detail.
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So you don't, I've been reading quite a bit about history.
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You don't worry about human nature and corruption
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You're saying institutionally,
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there's protections against this.
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I think there is always the fear of corruption,
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particularly when you speak about public servants.
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But clearly the risk is very different country by country.
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And speaking about agencies by agencies,
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I think the regulatory agencies
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have a very good track record in history
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of the US, of Europe, of England,
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of very, very good track record of integrity.
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It's something I think about.
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So I grew up in the Soviet Union
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and I need to perhaps introspect this a little bit.
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But when I was growing up, ethically,
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there was a sense that bribery
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is the only way you can get stuff done.
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That was the system of the time.
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Like you get pulled over by a police officer.
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Like obviously you need to bribe them.
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I mean, it was like the way of life.
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And then so coming to this country was beautiful
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to see that the rule of law has so much power.
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And ultimately the rule of law when enacted,
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when it holds up, it gives people freedom
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to do the best work of their lives.
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But there's still human nature.
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And that worries me a lot here.
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And again, it goes back to the perception,
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the communication, when there's people
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that have worked at Pfizer and an FDA, at the CDC,
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you look at their resume,
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they have those things on their resume, it worries people.
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Are these great leaders that we are supposed
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to see as authorities, are they playing a game on us?
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I would say that I recognize what you said
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about what happened in, or what,
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I'm sure that what you described
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in the country that you're coming from,
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it was how you experienced it.
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And I know that there are other countries
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that you need to do these things to do your job.
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I don't think it's the case in this country,
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particularly when it comes to those agencies
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that you mentioned.
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I think they have a very high track record.
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And also, I don't think that there are a lot of people
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that they are worried about it or doubt it.
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I'm sure, like everywhere, there will be a minority,
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but the vast majority of the Americans,
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the vast majority of the Europeans,
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the vast majority of the Brits,
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the vast majority of the Israelis,
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they trust what FDA or EMA or CDC or MHRA will say.
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Still, there's currently a distrust
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of big pharma in the public.
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Maybe this is something I'd love to hear your comment on.
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There's distrust of science when it's tangled up
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with corporations and government institutions,
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like we've talked about.
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But they have to be entangled to achieve scale,
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oversight, and to achieve the kind of scale
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that Pfizer's been able to accomplish.
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So, how can Pfizer regain the public trust?
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How can you regain the public trust, do you think?
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Not regain, but sort of take steps
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to increase the public trust.
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Reputation is something that you can lose in buckets,
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but you can earn it back in drops.
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And once you've lost it,
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you are going to take a lot of effort to bring it back.
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And the pharmaceutical industry lost it.
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It's clear that the reputation of the industry
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in the last decade was on the lowest
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that we have seen ever.
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And there are many reasons for that,
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but clearly there are reasons that are related also
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with the behavior of the industry.
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That needed to change, and I'm hopeful
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that very few will disagree
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that the industry is a very different industry right now.
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That being said, I truly believe
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that if there is one lesson that stands out
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from the many lessons that we learned during COVID,
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is the power of science in the hands of the private sector.
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I think it was the private sector
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that came with solutions with diagnostic tests
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when we didn't have, solutions with respirators
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when we didn't have, solutions with treatments,
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solutions with vaccines.
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And I think that demonstrated very clearly to the world
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the value of thriving life sciences sector,
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private life sciences sector to society.
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That also affected very positively the reputation,
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both of the sector and of Pfizer.
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I'm not going to make the mistake to consider given.
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I'm not going to make the mistake
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that because our reputation is high, that will remain so.
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We need to earn it every day.
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Every day with everything we do,
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with everything we say, with the way we behave.
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And I hope that we'll rise to this occasion
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and we will do that.
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You've been at Pfizer for 28 years.
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Time flies when you're having fun.
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And you've become CEO in 2019.
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It is a company you love, a company you believe in.
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It's a company that has developed drugs
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that has helped millions of people.
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So let me ask yet another hard question
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on this topic of reputation.
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In 2009, Pfizer pleaded guilty
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to the illegal marketing of arthritis drug Bextra
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and agreed to a $2.3 billion settlement.
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How do you make sense of the fact that this happened
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to a company you love and that you believe in?
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Yes, the Bextra case in 2009
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was related to things that happened in 2003.
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And the things that happened in 2003
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were things that basically several of our reps
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did off label promotion.
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So they spoke with the physicians
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about off label use of the product, and they shouldn't.
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Can you clarify it?
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So off label are things that the FDA didn't approve,
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You basically say this drug does extra stuff
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that the FDA never approved.
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Correct, and this is something that it is allowed
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when physicians are speaking to physicians,
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but it is not allowed for the pharmaceutical companies
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to refer to these studies,
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because usually our studies that are happening off label.
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And apparently several of our reps in 2003, they did it.
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And we had to settle in 2009,
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and we paid a very big fine, as you said.
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The fine was related not to the severity of the conduct,
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but the size of the revenues.
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So the fines are, if Bextra was a small product,
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we would get a small fine.
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Bextra was a very big product,
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and we got a very large fine.
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Very bad, what happened in 2003.
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I don't think that these things happened since then.
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We have a stellar record from 2009 until now
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of complying with every single regulation and rule.
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We have internal processes to make sure
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that these are not happening by individuals
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that may have an interest.
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For example, to get a promotion,
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they may try and do things
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that are not the right things.
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And we have, more importantly, a culture in this company
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that really sets aside people that they think differently.
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So I didn't like what happened in 2003,
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but I believe a lot has changed
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in the 20 years that followed, or almost 20 years.
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So you're developing drugs,
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you're developing solutions to help millions of people,
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but there's risk involved.
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And so there will be lawsuits heading back your way
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because there's a lot of lawyers in the world, partially.
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How do you put that into the calculation
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of how you try to do good in the world?
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That some of the cost is the lawsuits.
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How do you not fall victim to thinking
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that it's just the cost of doing business,
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and that some of the lawsuits might actually represent
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real pain that people are going through?
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No, I think that we try always to do the right thing.
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And that's, as I said, very well embedded into our culture.
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If you don't do the right thing,
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sooner or later, you will pay for it, one way or another.
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And right now, for us doing the right thing,
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it is being able to find innovations to issues
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that are real, diseases that they do not have
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good coverage, good treatments right now.
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We try to find treatments that significantly
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surpass the current standards of care.
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And we try not only to comply with what regulators
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are asking us to do, this is what you need to do
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to prove the safety or the efficacy, but exceed them.
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No matter what we do on that,
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I'm sure that people will find opportunity
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because, as you said, there are a lot of lawyers to sue us.
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But we believe in the justice system
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and we believe that eventually,
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if you are doing the right thing,
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you will be on the right side of the history.
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I'm really glad you say that because
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focusing on doing the right thing, no matter the money,
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I believe is the best way to make money.
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That's exactly what I said.
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And also, in another way, in other realms,
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creating a product that people love
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is the best way to make money.
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So focusing on the core of the thing
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that makes people feel good,
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that brings value to people's lives.
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So I'm now in Austin, Texas.
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My good friend, Joe Rogan, he's been highlighting to me
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this aggressive marketing on mainstream media channels
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So let me ask a general marketing question.
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Do you see this as a conflict of interest?
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Is it my bias, the reporting of news?
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That a lot of us, a lot of people, me included,
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look to these mainstream channels of news
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for kind of authority of like,
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what the heck's going on in the world?
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And if Pfizer is sponsoring
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many of these shows,
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there's a worry, it may be a perception thing,
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but there's also a natural worry
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that it would influence what they're talking about
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because they're afraid of losing the sponsorship.
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It's subtle, but at scale, it might have a serious impact.
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Do you worry about this?
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I think people could go one way or another
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because of multiple reasons.
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From our perspective,
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I don't think we have aggressive marketing.
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What we do, we go on TV
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and we are having ads about our products
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and they're highly regulated.
link |
I think it is the right of people to know,
link |
to learn that if there is a product like that.
link |
It's very clearly that we cannot say things
link |
that they are off label, that have not been approved.
link |
We need to have, every time we go on TV, as you know,
link |
FDA is forcing us to say also the bad things
link |
that can happen for a medicine.
link |
Sometimes that takes more time than the good things.
link |
And I don't think that we are doing aggressive marketing.
link |
Now, people could be influenced
link |
and can be biased in the podcasts
link |
or the other type of media activities that they have
link |
for multiple different reasons.
link |
Yeah, I know, but it's still, it's pressure.
link |
It's human nature.
link |
I mean, one of it is perception, but I worry about too.
link |
I think I have a ton of sponsors for this podcast,
link |
for example, and none of them ever asked me to anything.
link |
They're just, you know,
link |
I think likely that kind of pressure's not happening
link |
for Pfizer, but there's implied pressure sometimes.
link |
And I worry about that a lot because, you know,
link |
I look at academia, like I look for the good in people.
link |
I tend to believe most people are good
link |
or have the capacity to be good and desire to be good.
link |
When I came to MIT, I was a little bit disappointed,
link |
maybe heartbroken.
link |
How much pressure?
link |
I think unjustified pressure people felt
link |
from financial constraints, especially at MIT
link |
when there's, I think, a lot of money.
link |
People still felt constraints and they weren't,
link |
it wasn't bringing out the best in them.
link |
They weren't supporting each other.
link |
They weren't loving each other,
link |
like celebrating each other's successes.
link |
I don't want to blame money on everything,
link |
money constraints, but when you have sponsors,
link |
it just, I personally worry
link |
that it doesn't bring the best out of people.
link |
And so I feel like I want to put some responsibility
link |
on sponsors and great big companies like Pfizer
link |
to kind of not get in the way of the best of human nature,
link |
whether it's sponsoring podcasts, mainstream media,
link |
like, I don't know, athletes, whatever.
link |
You need to know that we are so, so careful
link |
with sponsorships.
link |
First of all, we have very few, very, very few.
link |
We have a team that for every single one,
link |
They will try to see if there is a conflict of interest
link |
in the way we do it.
link |
And also what is the reputation of the persons
link |
or the programs that we are sponsoring?
link |
So I don't think, our friend, I think was from Texas.
link |
I don't. Joe Rogan, yes.
link |
I don't think he got it right
link |
that we do those type of things.
link |
Oh, in terms of like having a negative effect on.
link |
Not even having aggressive sponsorships.
link |
Yeah, when you clip them all together.
link |
And most of the sponsorships that we have,
link |
it is more on patient related organizations
link |
rather than we are very careful not to sponsor other things
link |
that can be perceived, not even influenced,
link |
but perceived that we may influence.
link |
So we are very, very careful on that.
link |
This is not the case with us.
link |
So with the incredibly fast development of the vaccine,
link |
could you tell me the story from the engineering
link |
to the science, to the human story
link |
of how you could do it so fast?
link |
By November, you even had the ambition to do it by October.
link |
It was in the initial days.
link |
How do you. Eight days later.
link |
In that time, how do you show
link |
that the vaccine is safe and effective
link |
given that I think previous vaccines
link |
have taken years to do that?
link |
Yeah, the vaccines take years to do that.
link |
And the time that it takes, it is basically
link |
the vast majority of the time to conduct
link |
the final phase three study,
link |
that is the confirmatory study.
link |
And you do that because the phase three study
link |
costs a lot of money, in our case, cost almost a billion.
link |
So you don't want to go and risk a billion
link |
in blinded data normally before you do a lot of experiments
link |
to make sure that the product that you're putting
link |
in the phase three is the right one.
link |
We didn't have that time.
link |
So we risked all the money.
link |
So we went into, we condensed all the time
link |
towards this phase three.
link |
But the phase three study had to follow all the rules
link |
that any study follows when we do this trial.
link |
Could you just briefly describe the basics
link |
of what is phase one, what is phase two, what is phase three?
link |
Let's say that there are so many phases
link |
when you try first of all to find
link |
what is the right vaccine.
link |
We tried from 20 different vaccines,
link |
we nailed down to four.
link |
And for those four, we selected eventually two
link |
and then eventually one.
link |
Once you have those selections,
link |
what is the dose you're going to use?
link |
And then we tried multiple different doses
link |
to see which one we think is the best.
link |
What does trying entail in those early days?
link |
You go first of all with smaller doses in humans.
link |
And then after you have done a lot of experiments
link |
in animals so that you can feel that it is safe enough
link |
to go to humans and then go with very low dose.
link |
And then you gradually increase the dose
link |
and then you monitor those humans to make sure
link |
that there are not any, let's say reactogenicity
link |
to what you are giving them.
link |
At the same time, you start to measure what it's doing
link |
in terms of immune responses.
link |
So you do that with multiple vaccines
link |
and you do that with multiple doses
link |
and you do that with multiple ages of people,
link |
young people, old people.
link |
And eventually from the 20 vaccines to multiple doses,
link |
to multiple schedules, is it after three weeks
link |
the second dose or is it after four weeks
link |
or after six months?
link |
All of that will inform you that I think this is the vaccine,
link |
this is the dose, this is the scheme
link |
that I believe will give me the best results.
link |
And when you have that,
link |
then you go to do what we call the phase three.
link |
This is a very big study with thousands of people
link |
where you use the vaccine that you think is the right one
link |
The placebo and the vaccine, they look identical.
link |
Nobody knows if is injected a placebo or a vaccine.
link |
The physician that makes the injection,
link |
the doctor doesn't know if he's injecting placebo
link |
or vaccine, he knows a barcode.
link |
Only the computer knows.
link |
In order to go into this computer, there are keys
link |
and there are at least two people
link |
that needs to put their keys
link |
so that someone can see the data.
link |
And those people, they have legal obligations
link |
never to do that, right?
link |
So before a certain point.
link |
So all of that is blind.
link |
The idea is that when you go into this study,
link |
you need to make sure that you are going with the right one.
link |
That's why it takes so much time.
link |
But the study is the study.
link |
You need to have a significant number of people
link |
that will give the two
link |
and then you let them live their lives.
link |
And then you see how many of them will get the disease.
link |
And then you see if there are differences
link |
in percentage of infections for the vaccinated
link |
compared to the non vaccinated.
link |
At the same time, you're monitoring all of them
link |
to see if there are differences in the safety profile.
link |
If those that go to placebo have the same,
link |
let's say, heart attacks with those that they didn't.
link |
They got the vaccine because heart attacks will happen
link |
if you have 50,000 people because it's part of life.
link |
These are the, all these processes are very, very,
link |
very well established and since years.
link |
What we did the last one was exactly the same
link |
We just didn't lose time.
link |
We didn't, we're not careful with money.
link |
Instead of recruiting 50,000 people over a year,
link |
because we had let's say 30 hospitals doing the recruitment,
link |
we went with 150 hospitals doing the recruitment.
link |
That cost a lot of money.
link |
But instead of recruiting them in a year,
link |
we recruited them in three, four months.
link |
So I did this type of things by taking return on investment,
link |
taking costs out of the equation
link |
and we were able to achieve this result.
link |
But it's not the process, believe me.
link |
It is the heart of the people.
link |
People don't know what they can and what they cannot do.
link |
And if anything, they have a serious tendency
link |
to underestimate what they can do.
link |
And always, when you ask them something
link |
that is seemingly impossible,
link |
they will think out of the box to be able to deliver.
link |
We discussed about the timing.
link |
Instead of eight years, we then asked them to do it
link |
in six, we asked them to do it in eight months.
link |
Our normal manufacturing yearly production of Pfizer
link |
was 200 million doses of vaccines every year.
link |
That's what we are doing in the last 10 years.
link |
We didn't ask them to make 300 million doses for a new vaccine.
link |
We asked them to make 3 billion doses for a new vaccine.
link |
The discovery phase of a new molecule,
link |
like the treatment that we have now, the pill against COVID,
link |
We didn't ask them to do it in three.
link |
We asked them to do it in four months,
link |
which is what they did.
link |
When you are setting this type of goals,
link |
they know immediately, they cannot just think
link |
And immediately, this is where the human ingenuity
link |
and the heart comes.
link |
And this is how they surprised all of us.
link |
So there's incredible science and engineering
link |
This is an incredible thing. Absolutely.
link |
This is what's bothering me,
link |
that the conversation in public is often not about that.
link |
It's about politics, unfortunately.
link |
So I spent the day with Elon Musk yesterday.
link |
He works with rockets.
link |
Similar situation as with Pfizer,
link |
in the sense that there's NASA
link |
and then there's this private company.
link |
And that's a source of incredible inspiration to people.
link |
No politics, very little politics.
link |
So this is part of the thing I'm trying to,
link |
I'm hoping to do our little part in this conversation
link |
to help untangle a little bit,
link |
just reveal the beauty and the power of the thing
link |
that was done here, especially with the vaccine,
link |
but other things that are being done
link |
with the antiviral drug.
link |
Let me just kind of linger on the safety.
link |
There's a lot of people that are concerned
link |
that the Pfizer vaccine, by the way,
link |
of which I took two shots, no booster yet,
link |
What do you say to people that say that?
link |
No, they should not fear something like that.
link |
It's completely wrong.
link |
There is no medical product in the history of humanity
link |
that have been tested as much as this vaccine.
link |
Has been administered to hundreds of millions of people.
link |
And because of the importance of COVID,
link |
they have been scrutinized, those people, constantly.
link |
Right now, healthcare authorities are looking
link |
for every single signal around the world
link |
of people that they got the vaccine
link |
and try to see if it is vaccine related or not.
link |
There are electronic medical records
link |
that will tell us when and what happened
link |
to a person when he did got the vaccine.
link |
And we know now, we have so high certainty
link |
that it is so safe, exactly as the data sheet says
link |
about this vaccine, more than any other product.
link |
They should not be afraid of something like that.
link |
And they should not listen to information
link |
that it is misinformation, that it is spread on purpose.
link |
Well, I don't like the word misinformation
link |
because, you know, again, back to the Soviet Union,
link |
anyone who opposes the state is spreading misinformation.
link |
So you can basically call anything misinformation.
link |
That's the unfortunate times we live in,
link |
is you can call anyone, you can basically call anybody
link |
a liar and say, I'm the sole possessor of the truth.
link |
And just no offense to me, just because you wear a tie,
link |
it doesn't mean you're any more likely to be
link |
in the possession of the truth than anyone else.
link |
I wouldn't disagree with that at all.
link |
I don't think that.
link |
That's somebody who's not wearing a tie.
link |
And as you can, people can see
link |
that I'm not wearing a tie and you are.
link |
But it's not about being able,
link |
those that they have the power to impose on the others,
link |
the stigma that what you're saying is misinformation.
link |
But there are a few things that as society
link |
we have accomplished and science is one of them.
link |
And data is, and analytics of data is another one.
link |
And to say that something which is highly scientific
link |
by people that they are not scientists.
link |
I think that it is not what you're describing,
link |
what used to happen in Soviet Union
link |
or in any other autocratic regime in the world right now.
link |
But I definitely do think that the scientists,
link |
the public science communicators I've listened to
link |
over COVID have really disappointed me
link |
because they have not spoken with empathy.
link |
They haven't sufficiently in my view
link |
have put their ego aside and really listened to people.
link |
Yes, people that don't have a PhD,
link |
people who have not really,
link |
maybe not even taken like a biology course in college
link |
or something like that.
link |
But still they have children, they worry, they fear.
link |
They don't know who to trust.
link |
They don't know if they should listen to the CEO of Pfizer
link |
who might have other incentives in mind,
link |
who might just care about money and nothing else.
link |
And so they just use common sense and they ask questions.
link |
And I think to them talking down to them
link |
as if they're not intelligent and so on
link |
is something scientists have done
link |
almost like rolled their eyes.
link |
And that disappoints me because I think
link |
that's kind of what is the source of division.
link |
Humility is a virtue.
link |
And the fact that you are educated
link |
doesn't mean that you are having either humility or empathy
link |
or you have good human qualities.
link |
This was never and will never be a metric
link |
of judging this type of virtues.
link |
Those that they do this, they're wrong.
link |
And actually they are not doing good service
link |
to the public health because they're undermining.
link |
People are not stupid.
link |
They see if you're not be respecting them
link |
and if you're not respecting their need to learn
link |
because that affects their health,
link |
the health of the mother, of the kids.
link |
So I fully agree with you that we should be very patient
link |
to explain again and again and again what is happening.
link |
And the vast majority of the people
link |
that they don't get vaccinations right now
link |
is because they're afraid.
link |
It's not for any other reason.
link |
It's not that they have an agenda.
link |
What I'm saying it is there is a small number of people
link |
that they have made business for them
link |
to profit from this anxiety.
link |
I'll give you an example.
link |
I have been arrested by FBI.
link |
This is what someone wrote.
link |
I read it, I laughed.
link |
I mean, okay, this is where they take it.
link |
There was a reason why they wrote it that.
link |
The Pfizer CEO was arrested by the FBI
link |
because they want to create doubts
link |
in the minds of the people that they're afraid
link |
and say, look, if the FBI arrested him,
link |
likely I will not do the vaccine.
link |
A week later, the wife of the Pfizer CEO died.
link |
There is a picture in this website of my wife.
link |
Someone sends to me, now I'm pissed.
link |
I tried to find my kids to tell them,
link |
if you read something, mom is fine.
link |
Then I remember that she has very old parents back in Greece.
link |
We start calling them to making sure
link |
because so you know that that will be picked up
link |
by Greek newspapers and they will publish it, okay?
link |
They are those people that wrote these things.
link |
They know very well that my wife didn't die
link |
and died because she was vaccinated, right?
link |
So this is the narratives that they are on purpose forming
link |
to profit from the stress and the anxiety of good people.
link |
And that's something I have to kind of,
link |
people that listen to this, that kind of doubt institutions,
link |
I do also want to say that there's quite a few folks
link |
who realize they can make money from saying,
link |
the man is lying to you.
link |
The government is lying to you.
link |
Big pharma is lying to you.
link |
They're manipulating you.
link |
I'm surprised at how much money can be made with that.
link |
So you have to, just as people use their common sense
link |
to be skeptical when listening to politicians
link |
and powerful figures, they should be skeptical
link |
to also when listening to sort of the conspiracy theorists
link |
or not even the conspiracy theorists,
link |
but people who raise questions about institutions.
link |
Think on your own, think critically with an open mind
link |
that everyone can be manipulating you,
link |
but also everybody has the capacity to do good.
link |
And I think science in its pure form,
link |
not when entangled with institutions is a beautiful thing.
link |
And in the hands of many companies,
link |
it is a beautiful thing at scale.
link |
Still, you have a lot of incentive
link |
as having created the vaccine at Pfizer,
link |
this incredible technology to sing it praises.
link |
So there's a kind of, you know, people are skeptical,
link |
like how much do we trust,
link |
how excited Albert is about this vaccine.
link |
So for example, I mean, not to do a Shakespearean analysis
link |
of your Twitter, but I think he tweeted something
link |
about a study with a 100% efficacy of the vaccine
link |
or in stopping and transmission or something like that.
link |
Do you regret sort of being like over representing
link |
the effectiveness of the vaccine,
link |
technically saying correct things,
link |
but just kind of like highlighting the super positive things
link |
that may be misinterpreted, you know, saying 100%?
link |
No, I never said something 100%.
link |
Every time I speak, if a number is 100%,
link |
I rush to say that in biology, there is nothing 100%
link |
because always there will be
link |
when you go to the millions, okay?
link |
There were in the study things that were 100%,
link |
for example, deaths or in South Africa.
link |
When we tried, there was 100% efficacy.
link |
Clearly, it's more numbers.
link |
When the numbers will become much bigger,
link |
the 100% will not hold, but will be 95, 96.
link |
So still the direction of this is the point.
link |
So I'm very, very careful what I tweet.
link |
And in addition to how careful I am,
link |
I have people that they are looking at
link |
and they're having second or third opinions
link |
to make sure that we don't put, why?
link |
Because I know that people are listening to me right now,
link |
everything I say, and I want to make sure
link |
that they continue not only being clear
link |
as to what I want to say, so there are no misunderstandings,
link |
but also I maintain the trust of the people.
link |
I don't think that someone who only cherry picks information
link |
and only emphasizes positive things,
link |
it's someone that is the one to be trusted.
link |
And I want me and Pfizer to be trusted.
link |
So many felt the vaccine was presented as a cure
link |
that wouldn't require regular booster shots.
link |
Was that something you believed early on?
link |
Did you always believe that many regular shots
link |
would be required?
link |
And maybe in a bigger picture,
link |
how many do you think this will, for the Pfizer vaccine,
link |
is it something you see that's taking a booster shot
link |
regularly, like annually?
link |
Yes, in the beginning when we had the first months
link |
with the vaccine, people would ask me,
link |
do we need another one?
link |
And I said, we don't know.
link |
I was very clear about it.
link |
Then around April, May, I start seeing the first data
link |
and I made statements that I think we will need a booster
link |
around eight to 12 months after the second dose.
link |
And then after that, annually vaccinations,
link |
this is what I said,
link |
believe is one of the most likely scenarios.
link |
And it was based on the data that I had,
link |
but then Delta came.
link |
And because I always making the caveat
link |
that with absent a new variant with everything we know.
link |
With Delta, it was proven that we need the booster
link |
to move to the three, to the six months.
link |
And this is what happened.
link |
And I still said, I think the booster is a six months.
link |
And then I think it will be an annual revaccination likely.
link |
We have to monitor to see the data,
link |
but this is the likely scenario.
link |
Now we have Omicron.
link |
And Omicron says that two doses might be challenging.
link |
We don't know exactly yet, but three doses work.
link |
So clearly a lot of countries already started moving now
link |
the third dose, not from six months to three.
link |
So that they will reduce the period
link |
that people will not be protected with the third dose.
link |
I don't know with Omicron if how long this will last.
link |
And frankly, I don't know if we will need a new vaccine
link |
tailor made to Omicron based on everything we know so far.
link |
We are monitoring and we will know way more
link |
in the weeks to come.
link |
If there is a need for a new vaccine, we will have it.
link |
And if there is a need for mass production
link |
of this new vaccine, I can also feel very comfortable
link |
that we will not lose any of our capacity
link |
that we have developed.
link |
Right now we are running at 1 billion almost approximately
link |
doses per quarter, four per year.
link |
And if we have to switch and have half of that
link |
in the new, half of that in the old,
link |
we will do still 4 billion doses.
link |
So I think the world should feel very, very comfortable
link |
that if there is a need, we will be ahead of the virus.
link |
Yeah, you did, you delivered or produced 3 billion
link |
this year vaccines and you're on track
link |
to do 4 billion next year.
link |
I mean, if we had a lot more time,
link |
we would talk about how the heck you achieve
link |
that kind of scale, it's truly incredible.
link |
Let me ask the policy question.
link |
What are your feelings about vaccine mandates
link |
in terms of, do you think the most effective way
link |
to vaccinate the population is to acquire it?
link |
Or do you go with the American way
link |
and give people the freedom to choose?
link |
I think it is a very difficult topic
link |
and a very difficult decision for whoever needs to make it.
link |
And clearly it's not me.
link |
It is the public health officials of every country
link |
that they have to make this decision.
link |
I have to make the decision for Pfizer employees.
link |
And I had to balance the fear of those that they work,
link |
that they want to feel that the others are vaccinated
link |
and the fear of those that they don't want
link |
to get the vaccine.
link |
And eventually I came to the decision
link |
that we will mandate it at Pfizer.
link |
We are flexible, we are giving exceptions,
link |
of course for health, maybe some religions,
link |
but we decided to mandate it.
link |
Now, at Pfizer, when we did this decision,
link |
we were at 90% vaccination rates
link |
when we said we are going to mandate it.
link |
And that took it up to 96.
link |
This 10% was never going to move, I felt.
link |
Because no matter what, you have a small number of people
link |
that really are scared.
link |
And they don't feel comfortable to do it, okay?
link |
It worked in our case, we took it to 96%.
link |
I'm happy for those people.
link |
A lot will not disease and some will not die
link |
But it's not me to say, because the debate,
link |
it's serious debate.
link |
And there are a lot of pros and cons
link |
if you need to push people,
link |
if you need to give them the freedom.
link |
And it comes with the territory.
link |
If you are elected to run a country,
link |
you should be ready to make difficult decisions.
link |
And no matter what decision you make,
link |
there will be fake stories written about you
link |
as we talked about.
link |
You will not be able to please everyone.
link |
Well, let me just say that I think,
link |
again, coming from the Soviet Union,
link |
I think at the public level, at the federal level,
link |
mandates is a really bad idea.
link |
Even if it's good for the health of the populace,
link |
there's something about preserving the freedom
link |
is really powerful about this country.
link |
Like doing the hard work of convincing people
link |
to get vaccinated, to choose to get vaccinated
link |
if they want, but still have the freedom not to.
link |
That's a really powerful freedom.
link |
To me, it's super lazy to mandate.
link |
People should understand the science
link |
and want to get vaccinated.
link |
Do you think children need to get vaccinated?
link |
I do think that they need to get vaccinated.
link |
So age ranges five to 16.
link |
There's a lot of parents
link |
that fear for the wellbeing of their children.
link |
Can you empathize with those parents?
link |
Can you steel man their arguments
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against the vaccine for their children?
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You know, because people know who I am.
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I had the opportunity to interact with parents
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before that was, let's say, approved.
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And there were so many, way more,
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that I had a lot of empathy
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because they were afraid for their kids
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because they didn't have a vaccine.
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And they were the ones that were speaking at that time.
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When are you going to bring me a vaccine?
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I feel that this is unfair,
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but I am protected.
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My husband is protected.
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My old son is protected.
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And my little sweetheart,
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because she's below the age, is not protected.
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Now that we have the vaccines,
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I'm sure that those that they are afraid of the vaccine,
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not of the disease,
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which are smaller number, admittedly.
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Also, they will have, if they're afraid of them,
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I'm sure that they will afraid even more about their kids
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because they love, I would say,
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more than they love themselves.
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So it's going to be this situation.
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And again, the same.
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How can you do to demonstrate, to convince people,
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to win the minds and the hearts of the people
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that this is the right thing to do?
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What do you think about that calculation?
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Because the risk for kids is very low.
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Kids do go to the hospital from COVID.
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But the rate is very low.
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The rate is lower, but kids, they do die.
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And how can you say that I'm not going to,
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I'm not going to protect a kid
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for something that it is likely to happen?
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And it is not only that.
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What happens in the school
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when they stop the education process
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because a kid got the disease
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and they don't have vaccines so that they can control.
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It is such a big disruption
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and such a big risk for the health of the kids
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that it shouldn't be a debate.
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Look, how many kids are having polio right now?
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Way fewer number than those
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that they're having COVID in the hospital.
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But everybody's getting the vaccine.
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Well, polio was deadlier for kids.
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So why a kid to do it now?
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Because it needs to be protected.
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Well, the unique thing about the COVID vaccine
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is a new type of technology too.
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So there's an extra concern.
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Choosing to vaccinate a child,
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you're making a choice that can potentially hurt them.
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That's the way parents that are hesitant
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about the vaccine think.
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I think choosing to vaccinate children makes a choice
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so that something could not potentially hurt them,
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which is the disease.
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That's why we are doing vaccinations since ever.
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I know that there are people
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that they're concerned for themselves and for their kids.
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What I know it is that I'm a scientist and I'm a parent.
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And I am telling you that vaccines
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is a very good thing for kids.
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And thank God we were able to develop.
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So we've talked quite a bit about the vaccine,
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but there's an incredible new technology
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that Pfizer is developing
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with the PaxLovid antiviral for COVID.
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Where does that stand?
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How does that work?
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And how are you able to develop it in four months?
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Like you said, and all of that in just a few minutes.
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First of all, what this is about,
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this is a real game changer.
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This is a course of treatment
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that you get only if you get the disease, you get COVID.
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Then what happens is that you will take for five days,
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pills day and night, and twice a day for five days.
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And instead of 10 people from those that disease
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to go to hospital, only one will go.
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This is an end with all the caveats
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that the numbers are small, no one died.
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It was 100% efficacy on deaths.
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Of course, I'm sure that in real world,
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when the numbers are getting very high,
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we may have 99 instead of 100.
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But these are spectacular results
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for something that you can take home and stay home.
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The biggest problem right now in Europe, in the US,
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when we have surges,
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every time that we have a surge of COVID,
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it is that the ICUs are full,
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the hospitals are paralyzed,
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they have to postpone elective surgeries,
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they have to postpone other operations
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because they don't have the capacity because of that.
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Keeping people out of the hospitals, home,
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keeping people without dying,
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it is something that I didn't have before.
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And this is a significant, significant game changer.
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I have to ask a controversial, difficult question.
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What are your thoughts about ivermectin?
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Has it sufficiently been studied?
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Has Pfizer considered it in its, like I said,
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incredible development of the antiviral
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as a comparator or that kind of thing?
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Just investigate it in general.
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The reason I bring it up,
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because I've read quite a few criticisms of people.
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There's been some comparisons
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of paxilovir to the ivermectin,
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and I think people should look up.
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There is Dr. John Campbell that describes that comparison
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and makes that claim,
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and there's quite a lot of people that debunk
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or argue against that.
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You can do your own research,
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but there is a lot of people that kind of see
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this free drug without patents on it
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and say this could be the savior.
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So can you just speak to that comparison?
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It's not the first time.
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If you remember, there were other compounds
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that were claimed that they are the solution to COVID,
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and clearly they were proving that they're not.
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There are compounds that are solutions
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and compounds that are not.
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I, as a scientist, and I discuss with our scientists,
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they don't see any reason why a medicine like ivermectin,
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which is a parasitic site,
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to be able to act on COVID,
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and so they don't see that there's any connection,
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and they haven't seen any paper
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that describes someone that used it that had any results.
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I'm sure that there will be some people that will claim,
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because people are claiming anything,
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but I don't think that there was any paper
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in any peer review magazine,
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any reliable scientific magazine, to support this claim.
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So we are focusing on saving people's lives.
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We are not focusing on craziness.
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Well, to push back, there is quite a lot of papers,
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but the studies are small,
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so there's no conclusive evidence, and that's the point.
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I haven't seen any that it is reliable.
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I don't know where are these, small or big, reliable.
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I haven't seen any.
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Well, some of the big ones have been retracted,
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which means they weren't legitimate.
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This is definitely something that people need to look into,
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the people that kind of question
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are the effectiveness of ivermectin,
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definitely something to think about,
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and I think it's the reason that past public.
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It was chloroquine alone before.
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That's why PaxLovid.
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How many people died because of that?
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Yeah, this is the dangerous thing.
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This is the sad thing.
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PaxLovid has been studying thousands of people
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and will be under the scrutiny, not only of regulators,
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but as we will go into the implementation,
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as it happened in many countries,
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they will monitor to see what's happened.
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Let's say that whatever we do, once it is out there,
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within a few weeks, they will know all hospitals,
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if it works or not, because they will see the statistics.
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We've gone through one of the more difficult periods
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in recent human history over the past two years,
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like as a society.
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What gives you hope about the future
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for our human civilization?
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You look into the next few years.
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I think the human ingenuity.
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I think although there is,
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the world always is progressing,
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although there are a lot of things
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that need to be fixed in the society of 2020.
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The society of 2020 is better at large
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than things 50 years back, 100 years back,
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in all different aspects, from poverty,
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for human rights, from science,
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from quality of life, from any aspect.
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I am positive that humans can create
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and always create a better future
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and will continue doing so.
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You have helped save the lives of millions of people,
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helped improve the quality of their lives,
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but you yourself are just one biological organism
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with an expiration date.
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Do you ponder your mortality?
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Do you think about your death?
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Are you afraid of death?
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That's a very interesting question.
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I was discussing with a lot of people
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that I was fearless of death, I couldn't care less,
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The first time that I start feeling
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that I want to be around was when I had kids.
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And then I started feeling that,
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oh gosh, I hope I will be around to see their wedding.
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I hope they will be around to see their children.
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So if there is something that scares me,
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the possibility I will not be part of their lives anymore
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and I will not be watching.
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I hope there is life upstairs,
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so I will be able to watch them from there.
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From upstairs, get a nice overview.
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Let me ask the big ridiculous question.
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And you only have two minutes or less to answer it.
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What is the meaning of life?
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What's the meaning of this whole thing?
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You said ingenuity is the thing that gives you hope.
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We seem to be all busy trying to help each other,
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trying to build a better world.
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Why are we doing that?
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I would repeat something that Steve Jobs has said.
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Death is life's biggest invention.
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It eliminates the old and gives place to the new.
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Life is all about moving forward.
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Life is all about creating new things.
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And maybe everyone is a contributor,
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but no one is the owner.
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And always creating something new.
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Adding something beautiful into the world,
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maybe a little bit of love.
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Albert, thank you so much.
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It's a huge honor that you go through
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some of these difficult questions with me today
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and that you give your extremely valuable time
link |
for this conversation.
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Thank you so much for talking today.
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Thank you for your interest and I'm happy,
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as I was telling you before,
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but I can brag with my kids that I was in your podcast
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because you are their hero.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Albert Burla.
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To support this podcast,
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please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, let me leave you with some words from Oscar Wilde.
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The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.