“We’re in this bizarre period of anti-science. It’s globalized; it’s become its own empire.”
Dr. Peter J. Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hotez is an internationally recognized physician scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.
Anti-science sentiment has taken hold in America and spread globally. This has been a main obstacle in slowing the COVID pandemic, nearly half the country flouted CDC guidelines as a sign of political and cultural allegiance. Disinformation has been difficult to counteract as its dissemination is so pervasive across the Internet. This was made especially difficult when the Trump-led White House executed a textbook anti-science disinformation campaign, undercutting the health and science community’s efforts. “I’ve had multiple epiphanies but the latest and most horrifying was seeing the anti-science COVID disinformation campaign come out of the White House about a year ago. I’ve seen this before. This is a deliberate anti-science disinformation campaign.”
The COVID vaccines have proven highly effective at not only preventing symptomatic illness, but also asymptomatic spread. The next major challenge is getting the rest of the world vaccinated, particularly Africa and Latin America where large-scale vaccination plans have yet to be developed.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Peter Hotez
Dean
National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:06)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Soul talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks is the same as our goal at our salt conference series, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And in my opinion, and I know Anthony shares this opinion as well. There's no topic more important today than talking about vaccines and public health. And we're very excited today to welcome professor Peter J Hotez onto salt talks, uh, to talk about these issues. Uh, Dr. Hotez is the Dean of the national school of tropical medicine and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor college of medicine and Waco, Texas, Dr.
John Darcie: (01:01)
Hotez is an internationally recognized physician scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development as head of the Texas children's CVD. He leads a team and product development partnership for developing new vaccines for diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide. In 2006 at the Clinton global initiative, he co-founded the global network for neglected tropical diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people. He obtained his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics from Yale university in 1980, followed by a PhD degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller university in 1986 and a medical degree from wild Cornell college medical college, uh, in 1987, in 2014 to 2016, Dr. Hotez served in the Obama administration as us Envoy, focusing on vaccine diplomacy initiatives between the us government and countries in the middle east and north Africa in 2018, he was appointed by the us state department to serve on the board of governors for the U S Israel by national science foundation.
John Darcie: (02:05)
And he's frequently called upon to testify before us Congress, and also in major media outlets. He's also going sort of off script here. He's been called the OJI villain by people in the anti-vaccine movement, including Robert Kennedy Jr. Who's sort of the face of a lot of that movement. So that's a huge badge of honor, uh, for Dr. Hotez to get that distinction within that community, because it means he's spreading truth and sort of, uh, one of the people that's evangelizing truth around the need to get vaccines, especially for something like COVID-19 that has ravaged, uh, so much of the United States as well as the world, but it's a pleasure to have you on Dr. Hotez hosting. Today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge capital, a global alternative investment firm. And he's also the chairman of salts. And with that, I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview. Anthony is not a doctor, but I know he has a lot of very important things to say about
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:54)
That, correct. Hotez he starts in every day, every day, he's got a little wise Alec remark, trust me as we get towards September and it's bonus season, I look taller and thinner to Mr. Darcie. Okay. Just so you know. So I, he gave
Peter Hotez: (03:08)
Me a very generous introduction, unfortunately, we're almost out of time, but it was a great introduction.
John Darcie: (03:12)
Yeah. Well, now I'm doing much,
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:17)
I'm doing your book at this service or which I apologize for, cause I ha I've read it on my Kindle. Uh, but what we'll do is obviously we'll post it up for people and we'll put it up on our social media, but the book is about vaccine diplomacy in a time of anti-science. And I think the book is absolutely fascinating on a number of different levels because we're in the age of disinformation SIRS, you clearly point out of the book and we're in an age where I would have thought as you and I were roughly contemporaries. I would've thought at this point in our lives, science would have mattered more. Uh, but it feels like we went instead of into the 21st century, we're sort of back in the 17th or 18th century, even skipping the 19th century. So, so my question to you, sir, why did you write the book? What can our viewers and listeners learn from purchasing the book, which I strongly recommend that they do?
Peter Hotez: (04:11)
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Anthony, you know, we're, we're in this bizarre period of what I call anti-science, it's almost, it's big and it's globalized. It's become its own empire, which we'll talk about more. But the reason I wrote the book was, uh, from my time as us science Envoy, um, in the Obama administration, I was there in the middle east and north Africa at a very difficult time. Uh, 2015 into 20 14, 20 15, 20 16. It was during the Syrian conflict, the civil war, the ISIS occupation, the proxy war between the Saudis and the Iranians were starting in Yemen. And the Arabian peninsula had de stabilize the [inaudible] war and political collapse was bringing back a vaccine preventable diseases, neglected tropical diseases like leishmaniasis, this huge rise and in Aleppo, and while everyone was focused on the geopolitical consequences, what I saw was a massive eruption of disease and also noted how we were seeing this in Venezuela with the Maduro regime and in central Africa and the, and the Boca Harambe areas in Northern Nigeria.
Peter Hotez: (05:20)
And then even what was happening on Texas and the Gulf coast and realized that the kinds of forces that were bringing back diseases were things that is a MD and a PhD physician scientist. I was never trained to think about poverty, war, political collapse, climate change anti-vaccine anti-science movements. And yet these were the disease drivers and all that, that book was finished about a year before COVID-19 erupted. So that COVID-19 was in some ways I see it as a culminating event rather than something extraordinary. This was all predicted and predictable based on the, uh, the huge unraveling we're seeing.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:00)
So I wanna, I wanna, I wanna ask you about the moment. Was there an epiphany? Uh, you're obviously a medical doctor university professor, uh, you've had this, uh, work as a political public servant for our country. Thank you for that. But was there a moment, was there an epiphany where you were like, oh my God, there's a tremendous amount of disinformation out there. And that just information is in a Prairie fire situation growing at a time when we don't need that. Frankly, we need scientific fact on the ground and data. When did that happen,
Peter Hotez: (06:38)
Sir? Well, I've had multiple Epiphanes, but the latest one and for me the most horrifying was when I saw the anti-science, uh, COVID disinformation campaign come out of the white house about a year ago at this time. Uh, and you know, going up against anti-vaccine groups for years because I have a daughter with autism and I have four adult kids, and I have a daughter with autism and intellectual disabilities and wrote a book about it called vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism to debunk all of the fake claims that vaccines cause autism from the anti-vaccine lobby and what autism is. And, and so I became by default, an expert in anti-science disinformation campaigns. And then I saw it happening in front of my eyes, going on CNN and MSNBC, listening to the stuff coming out of the white house. And, and of course it came out of president Trump, but it was Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow and this guy Meadows, and even the white, even Kaylee, Macanese the white house press secretary.
Peter Hotez: (07:39)
I said, you know what, I know what this is. I've seen this before. This is, this is not just a one-off thing. This is a deliberate anti-science disinformation campaign and called it out as such. And, and I was one of the first to call it out. Not because I was so brilliant, it's just that I had decades of experience going up against these groups and it was coordinated and it was really scary. And that was a tough time for me because, you know, as a scientist, you're always told, just stick with the science. You're not an expert on politics. Don't try to become a political expert, but in order to tear apart, the anti-science from what was being said, you know, you have to call it out. And that was, uh, that was a very dark period for me.
Anthony Scaramucci: (08:22)
Let let's say that we're speaking today to anti-vaxxers, uh, they they're, we've got a hundreds of them, millions of them plugged into this and they were trying to move them. What would you say to anti-vaxxers? And by the way, I'm going to point out something to you, which is astonishing to me. I have a high school teachers that are friends of mine, uh, elementary school teachers, very smart, educated people. They won't get vaccines. They, they absolutely think that the coronavirus vaccine is going to do something to genetically mutate them. Uh, and so what would you say to these people? How, how do you reach these people, sir? Is there a way to change their hearts and minds?
Peter Hotez: (09:02)
Well, one of the things that I point out is, and thanks for the question is that this is no longer a fringe group. Anti-science anti-vaccine sentiments activities are now mainstream in American public life. And, and although it started around vaccines causing autism about six, seven years ago, it in order to re-energize cause in part, because I had been debunking all the fake autism links in order to re-energize, it found a way to glom itself onto the Republican tea party here in Texas and Oklahoma. And that re-energized it. They started forming political action committees. They started getting a lot of money from T D T party donor support. And, um, and then it glommed on in 2020 protest against mass and social distancing. It became this full-on anti-science movement of that. And you saw it happen, uh, in the last summer you saw how the virus accelerated through the Southern states, um, mostly red states and then into the central, uh, upper Midwest, all because people showed their political allegiance by defying masks and social distancing.
Peter Hotez: (10:10)
And, and now we've got multiple surveys, including one of ours that we did with Texas a and M and then one that, uh, the most recent on PBS news hour finds that quote, white Republicans are now the leading anti-vaccine evac, most vaccine hesitant group. And it all began about six, seven years ago, uh, with under this banner of health, freedom, medical freedom, and it's, it's not become mainstream. And this is, this is a huge issue in, so trying to combat the disinformation is, is not easy because it dominates the internet there more than 480 fake anti-vaccine websites, all revved up on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. If you go to amazon.com and look on, look up books on vaccination, they're almost all fake anti-vaccine books and COVID conspiracy books. So Amazon is the single largest promoter of vaccine, uh, disinformation. And then of course, as if that weren't complicated enough, you've gotten out of the export of this to Western Europe, you had anti mask, anti, uh, vaccine rallies and London and Berlin Paris and Berlin, the tried to storm the Reichstag or it was reported.
Peter Hotez: (11:23)
It was linked to Q1 on. And, and then if that were not complicated enough, then you've got what U S and British intelligence report is a systematic program of weaponized health communication. That's the term they use coming out of Putin and Russian government. So this is a mainstream movement now, and it's as big a threat, I think to our country is anything that we build infrastructure to combat like nuclear proliferation or terrorism. I think it's reached that level, you know, in the end that killed 530 540,000 Americans was not only the SARS coronavirus. It was the SARS coronavirus, aided and abetted by this anti science movement. And there's some new numbers saying that a majority of the deaths and COVID-19 in the U S were, were because of this. So this is, this is a crisis
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:11)
30, 35,000 people are dead in Florida. Uh, yet governor DeSantis is out there, uh, championing his economic policies and his policies towards handling the virus. And as you know, many people find his decisions to be quite popular. What's your, uh, as a scientist, what's your view of that?
Peter Hotez: (12:33)
Well, you know, he's, he's done everything he can to encourage this kind of fake health, freedom, uh, sentiment and attitudes. And he most recently held a press conference where he brought in Scott Atlas. I'm sure he's someone you've you've met before. And yes, no. I know Scott and, and all of these, all of this great Barrington nonsense that came, comes out of the American Institute for economic research. And, and now it's got a quote, its own intellectual underpinnings, even though it's highly flawed. And, and, uh, but, but it has the veneer of a serious, uh, uh, well intellectually thought out program. And again, it's, uh, but the [inaudible] in here, this is not a time to mess around. This is we know that variant is much more contagious than anything we've seen higher mortality. New paper came out in nature magazine last week. So this is a, this is, you know, we're not, we're not far away. We, we still can. I think we can vaccinate our way out of this. We just have to minimize loss of life between now and then,
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:36)
But the current vaccines on the market right now are somewhat protective of that variant, is that fair to say or
Peter Hotez: (13:44)
That's right. So it looks as though all of the operational warp speed vaccines, which by the way, is another terrible name is, um, are not only protective against your original lineages, but against the [inaudible] variant, which is going to be the dominant one in the foreseeable future. That's the one that came out of England and what's more Anthony, which is really exciting. Now studies out of Israel in Scotland are showed the vaccines are not only stopping symptomatic and illness, which is what we knew from the phase two clinical trials last year. But now we know it's actually stopping documented infection, meaning PCR positivity. And what that means is the vaccines are stopping virus shedding from the nose and mouth. It means that I'm working at stopping asymptomatic transmission so that, uh, I'm pretty confident. Now, if we can vaccinate most of the American people, we can actually vaccinate our way out of this epidemic. We can actually haul virus, transmission and get back to something that resembles something very normal. And as you know, I've, I mean, no one has been more straightforward about giving bad news to the American people than I've been. So this is a very optimistic thing I'm saying, and I firmly believe it that we can, we can conquer this virus in the United States. We have a big problem globally, but in the United States,
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:02)
Well, I, you know, listen, I, I found you throughout this whole process to be a voice of reason, sobering facts-based, but also a voice of reason. And I think, uh, you know, I owe it to you and people like you and, uh, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, et cetera, for telling the truth to people and also helping us conform our behavior to create more safety for our families and even, you know, elderly people in my family. But, but, uh, I'm going to take this, I'm going to cut it and I'm going to send it to about a hundred people. I know that will not get the Corona virus vaccine. And, you know, listen, I'm not trying to profile here, but they are white and they are Republican. And they've been watching a lot of Fox news and they listened to president Trump and they not going to take the vaccine.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:52)
And you, and I both know, uh, that taking that vaccine and I'll fully disclose everybody. I'm about to get my second dose of the modern, a virus vaccine. Um, you and I both know that that's going to stall our ability to create this herd immunity. So you've got the stage, give me your best sale. I, you know, you got, you got a great gown on I'm, I'm, I'm loving the doctor's gown and the Baylor logo and everything. You've got the stage, but you got to channel your best salesmanship now. And you've got to convince this, this group of a hundred people that I know personally, that will not take this vaccine. What are we saying to them
Peter Hotez: (16:30)
Today? So we've been working, I've been working our groups and working on Corona virus vaccines for the last decade. We make vaccines for lots of tropical and neglected infections. And we adopted a coronavirus vaccine program a decade ago. We showed that the best way to prevent Corona virus infection is to deliver the spike protein to the immune system, to create virus, neutralizing antibodies in your system. We now know that those virus neutralizing antibodies from a vaccine will save your life. Well, that
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:02)
Will make me sterile doctor.
Peter Hotez: (17:05)
Yeah. They won't make you sterile. It won't modify your DNA. In fact, we've put out a series of articles now, deep debunking, all of the fake assertions ranging from that, it's going to modify your DNA, creating genetically modified humans to five G nonsense. And, um, and the list goes on. What we know is that by getting vaccinated, getting virus, neutralizing antibodies, that's the closest thing to a guarantee that you will not go to a hospital or an intensive care unit because of COVID-19. And we know that the only way to get back to a normal quality of life in the United States is to get just about every adult vaccinated. And if we do that, um, I think the masks didn't come off. I think the, um, we can get back to school, get back to college, get back to ball games, get back to everything else that we like to do.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:00)
And in 2000, I think that's brilliant and I'm going to cut that. And I'm going to try to reach as many people with that as possible. In 2012, David Quammen wrote a book called spillover, uh, and he talked about the animal population and the human population running into each other. Now, as the population of humans is spilling over into the animal population, seven plus billion of us, uh, and it causing these transfers, the zoological or zoo Tropic transfers of viruses from mammals to humans. Um, what is your opinion of that more of that going to happen in our future and are these M RNA vaccines, can they be reprogrammed to help prevent the next big pandemic?
Peter Hotez: (18:48)
Yeah, a lot to unpack there. Well, first of all, what's happened now for the first time more people live in urban areas than rural areas. That's been a trend that's been accelerating over the last decade. So if you've projected decades out, you know, the human race is going to live in a series of mega cities, massive, uh, urban structures that outstrip, um, water and sanitation. And, you know, we're looking at a mega city is a city over 10 million people. So consortium and Legos and DACA and Bangladesh for, to laser. These are going to be massive cities, and they're going to encroach upon forested areas where bats live. And we know bats, uh, not only, uh, are, are natural reservoirs of Corona viruses, but also Ebola virus and lip a virus. So we should expect more of this kind of contact going on. And, and particularly in areas where there's enormous amount of crowding that outstrips infrastructure that's just can ignite a virus, uh, along one of these big mega cities. So unfortunately this is going to be a new reality, and we now need to take steps globally, uh, in order to get ready for this as a. So what I've been saying is we've had SARS in 2003 mayors in 2012. That's when we started getting involved in this, making those vaccines, we've got COVID in 2019, we'll have COVID 26, we'll have COVID 32, and we need to get ready for that as well.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:22)
Um, 500,000 plus deaths in the United States, obviously very tragic. And some of those we both know could have been avoided at, we had better unified theory around public health and safety, and obviously a bigger output on the vaccines. We also both know that president Trump and his family took the vaccine, but didn't want to tell people about it because they prey on these peoples conspiracy theories in their anti-vaccine situation. Um, what would you say to president Biden who is now at the helm? How do we cleanse ourselves of this, this, this information? What do we do from a public perspective, a private perspective to try to get this right going forward?
Peter Hotez: (21:09)
Well, first of all, I would like to say, you know, he is responsive to the scientific community or has been, and I, and I've worked with president Biden when he was a Senator around neglected tropical disease legislation, very committed to things like this. And he, um, you know, he came out right after the inauguration saying he was going to vaccinate a hundred million people in a hundred days and said, we're going to fully vaccinate the American people by the fall. But those of us in the scientific community saw that [inaudible] he said, oh, this isn't going to work. He's got to do this by late in the spring. And they responded, you know, they, they were, they were responsive and they figured out how, how to do that. So I have to tell you, that's one of the more impressive things I've seen in terms of responding to a pandemic threat by, by an entity in the U S government, what he has to do now, which so far, I haven't really seen.
Peter Hotez: (22:01)
Maybe there are things going on behind the scenes is reaching out to the other side, reaching across the aisle. And I know he's capable of it. He's had his Greg great track record of doing it. But, um, this, this vaccine resistance, this anti-science component of the Republican party is real. And as I say in the past, it was just, you know, from the, you know, pretty extreme people down here in Texas, in Oklahoma, under health, freedom, medical freedom, it's mainstream, and the Republican party right now, you have multiple members of Congress now publicly stating they're not going to get vaccinated and we've got to fix this and we have to fix it soon because it's eroding the strength of our country. I mean, uh, I, I'm a believer that the greatness of our nation is built on a lot of things. And one of them is the greatness of our research institutions and universities and the water.
Peter Hotez: (22:54)
Why do people love America? And that's a major reason. And this is, you know, our greatest victories were achieved through science, whether it's defeating Nazi-ism and fascism in world war II or the cold war, or putting humans on the moon. Um, we have always been a science driven country for the last hundred years. And, and to get away from that is so self-defeating, and, and this means reaching out to the Republicans and I haven't been doing my part I've well, first of all, we had a lot of vaccine hesitancy among African-American groups. So I started going on talk radio shows and podcasts that reach black and brown communities, and now I've made it no. And then I've been doing it going on conservative news outlets, and then trying to get back on Fox. I was on for a while. And then, then I was off trying to get back on Fox. And even I did was on Newsmax. So it was on a daily caller and we have to do this in order to fully, you know, solve this problem. And I think we can, but it's going to take a lot of work. There's a lot of in people right now.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:57)
Yeah. And, but, you know, and it's also has spilled over frankly, to continue to use that word into election fraud. We had the secretaries of state of Michigan and the secretary of state of Georgia on our, our series here to talk about the accuracy of that election. Yet there's 40 or 50 million people think that it's a fraudulent election. So we, we have a fever going on in the country right now of disinformation. And that's why people like you, sir, our national heroes, because you're willing to brave that fight despite the attacks on your personhood and who you are. Um, I know I
Peter Hotez: (24:32)
W I always say, no, the Republican party was never anti-science right. I mean, national academy of sciences was formed under Abraham Lincoln, Eisenhower launched NASA, George W. Bush launch PEPFAR. You know, it was never this way before. And so at am. I try to educate people about that, to say, you know, this, these are not the droids you're looking for. I don't know why you're going in this direction when it's, so obviously self-defeating and scary and, and, uh, and, uh, an, a security threat for the country. This is as great. A Homeland security threat is anything we'll face.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:06)
So I, I have a theory about this, sir. Not that you want to hear my theories, but I do believe that there's economic desperation in the land. Uh, there's a very large group of people that don't feel the aspirational arc of America that perhaps our generation and our parents felt and a result of which they're pointing fingers. And they're looking to conspiracy, and they're looking to breed this disinformation. It helps almost a swash where they're going directionally. I think we've got to provide more jobs, more opportunity, more real income.
Peter Hotez: (25:37)
I totally agree. I mean, it's, you know, it's become tribal and, and all I'm trying to do now is say to the tribe, this is not the one you want get, right. Don't get, get rid of, get rid of the anti-science good, right?
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:52)
Because obviously science is our future will lead to more prosperity. I've got the erstwhile millennial that needs to ask questions. If we don't bring them in dock the ratings, don't apparently he's very, very popular this guy. I mean, he gets, he gets fan mail and all kinds of different stuff, but I have one last question before we bring in Mr. Darcie, and that's related to the accusations going on, uh, in the Wu Han laboratory and the origination of COVID-19. I was wondering if you could, uh, opine on those theories, which your opinion there, if you have one
John Darcie: (26:25)
And former CDC director Redfield just came out with an op-ed basically expressing his opinion than it did originate from the lab and move on.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:34)
What's your opinion there, sir, if you have one,
Peter Hotez: (26:36)
Well, you know, it's, it's not impossible. The, well, one of the things I've said is, you know, China's always been the perfect mixing bowl for zoonotic viruses, because we used to do a lot of work in China. We kept the lab in China, in Shanghai for many years, and you see it in the outdoor markets, you know, it's this perfect mixing bowl of ducks and pigs and chickens. And, and it all comes together in contact with, with humans. And that's why we see all of the avian flus, poor sine flus come out of China. That's why you see, you saw stars arise out of China. So the point was, there was never a reason to invoke human orange or man-made oranges, uh, for this, for this virus. So it's not impossible. I just never saw the, the urgency to, to focus on it because we know that China is a place that we do active virus surveillance for, because of it's a vulnerable, vulnerable area.
Peter Hotez: (27:34)
So let's, it is possible. Um, I think proving it is going to be really tough, you know, trying to get ahold of, uh, an email chain or, uh, or a smoking gun in terms of record. But it's, you know, I've been talking to a number of people, uh, in, in law enforcement and in, and other branches of the government, uh, last year about the possibility. And that's what I said, yes, it's possible, but I don't know the need to, to, to, to, uh, to focus on it. And then, because, uh, there's a lot of, there are a hundred other reasons why that quarter of ours could have arisen out of China. John Dorsey, go ahead.
John Darcie: (28:16)
All right. So you talked about how in the U S we're on a path, and we were talking about this before we went live on a path. There was an op-ed written recently, or an article written recently in the New York times about how the current dilemma facing the Biden administration is what to do with the oversupply of vaccines, which is obviously a, a high class problem to have when six months ago, or nine months ago, we didn't know what the timeline was going to be for even developing a vaccine. So it's promising the arc of vaccinations in the U S is relatively promising, not withstanding the anti-vax movement, but around the world, it's a much different picture. So a lot of countries, whether it be an Africa or, or, uh, middle east areas that you covered under the Obama administration or Asia, there's certain countries that a lot of countries that have zero vaccinations. So how do we look at our role in the world as, as the United States, as a leader around the world? Uh, not just for altruistic reasons, but also for selfish reasons in terms of really extend, extinguishing this virus, uh, in a way that will be lasting for hopefully the foreseeable future. How do we think about vaccine distribution in a way that can help the world and also help us?
Peter Hotez: (29:21)
Well, you know, my op my optimism about the U S and to some extent, the UK and Western Europe is tempered by my profound pessimism for what's going to happen in Africa and Latin America. I mean, look at, look at the size of, of the undertaking. There are 1.1 billion people living in Sub-Saharan Africa, 650 million people in Latin America. You're talking. So roughly almost 2 billion people, two doses of vaccine, that's 4 billion doses of vaccines, where where's that going to come from? The big picture problem is this. Everyone was so focused on the innovation and making and, and using that high technology to make high-tech very good vaccines for the U S and Europe is, and nobody really gave thought to simple, durable, non fussy, easy breezy vaccines for Africa and Latin America. And that is the reality. So, you know, Pfizer by and tech said, they're going to donate 230,000 doses of their vaccine to Rwanda.
Peter Hotez: (30:24)
It's great. It's a drop in the bucket. And, and even if the us were to give all of the rest of its supply today, um, it would help a little bit, but it's still mostly a drop in the bucket. We still have not figured out what we're going to do, and it's not because there wasn't a commitment to equity. Uh, the international policy makers who Gavi sucky created the Kovac sharing facility, it's well-designed, and it's, uh, in its structure, but the vaccines just aren't there because we were so focused on the shiny new toys in terms of the types of vaccines that were going to make the nobody gave attention to that. So we, you know, early on started making in low cost recombinant protein vaccine for COVID-19 that now we've licensed to biologically and Hyderabad there, like serum Institute of India, one of the big manufacturers, and they have the capacity to make 1.2 billion doses, which is what they're doing.
Peter Hotez: (31:20)
But it was interesting when I, you know, in 2020, as I was calling out the disinformation campaign in the white house, I was also on the phone trying to raise money because nobody cared about our vaccine because it wasn't a high-tech cool vaccine. It was something that it's the same technology you use as the hepatitis B vaccine that's been given for four decades. And we did, we raised around four or $5 million privately, um, including from Tito's vodka. So if you, um, and the, the clay brick foundation and JPB foundation, so if you order a cocktail tonight and it has vodka in it, it's gotta be teed up. So my,
John Darcie: (31:57)
My mother-in-law is going to my mother-in-law is going to take care of that herself, uh, tonight. So, so Tito's is well supportive in my household. Trust me
Peter Hotez: (32:06)
Ahead. And, um, but you
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:08)
Know, I was starting and his grandmother-in-law to lay my head, but let's keep going. Cardi.
John Darcie: (32:12)
If Bacardi was involved in, uh, in the vaccine distribution, then that would be covered by my grandmother-in-law, but
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:20)
We're certainly open to hear from Bacara while her diet. And just so you know, and I want everybody to know this is diet Coke, and Bacardi seems to be going very well for her at age 83. And counting, go ahead. And this is,
John Darcie: (32:32)
I don't want to waste too much time with this, but speaking of her, she's 82 years old, her husband got COVID thankfully survived it a tough couple of weeks, but she slept in bed with him every night that he had. COVID-19 never got it, never got infected. It was the most bizarre thing that we couldn't figure out what was going on. It's just goes to show you the weirdness of this disease.
Peter Hotez: (32:52)
It really, for, for so many reasons, it's so odd. So the point is, um, and so in terms of what the Biden administration should do with the excess is they should provide it to the Kovacs facility and let them distribute the vaccine. What I prefer not happen is to, for the, for the Biden administration, do what the Russians and the Chinese have been doing, which is using their vaccine as a bargaining chip in a very transactional way, making one-on-one deals with countries, um, uh, in what's now being called vaccine nationalism. You know, we've got a good Kovac sharing facility. If they're going to provide vaccine, don't use it as a, as an instrument of foreign policy, use it, use it as, uh, to provide for the equity mechanism that's been set up, but I think that's probably something like that will happen, but again, it's still not enough.
Peter Hotez: (33:45)
Um, I'm really worried. And now at that [inaudible] variant the south African variant going out from South Africa to Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, I'm worried it's going to destabilize the African continent. We've got the P one variant coming out of Brazil that could do the same. This, this could be a real, uh, as terrible as things have been, this could be, uh, even even more concerning humanitarian catastrophe. And so I hope our vaccine can make a difference. Um, and, and I worry about the bad press around the AstraZeneca vaccine, because that was one of the other workhorse vaccines that we were counting on for low and middle income countries. So the, this could be the next phase, the next crisis of the pandemic, the us UK Europe looks after itself and the rest of the world suffers dramatically.
John Darcie: (34:38)
Are you worried actually about the efficacy of the AstraZeneca AstraZeneca vaccine at all? Or do you think it's purely something that, you know, the PR has gotten out of control and it's going to damage a pandemic response as a result?
Peter Hotez: (34:51)
Well, you know, it's, it's a race to the bottom. The say it was a worst who was the worst public health communicator? Was it the white house coronavirus task force in 2020, or it was, or was it AstraZeneca? Um, they certainly have not done themselves any favor, but the individual European countries made a lot of mistakes, too. I'm in Germany, the Paul Ehrlich Institute set out such a damning press release, uh, uh, the, uh, uh, day before the European medicine agency said it's safe to use. And so this creates a lot of confusion and we have to remember this anti-vaccine anti-science empire as deeply infiltrated the low and middle income countries. It's an India, it's an Africa it's in Latin America. So we're going to get a lot of people who will die refusing, um, COVID vaccines in Africa and in the Americas. And so this is going to be a huge issue.
John Darcie: (35:43)
Um, in terms of the vaccines, are you worried about their ability to, uh, inoculate against these variants? How concerned should we be generally about the variants and, you know, not just the fact that they're more contagious, but they're potential resistance to Primis that we've developed so far.
Peter Hotez: (36:00)
So all of the vaccines work equally? Well, it looks like against the B 1, 1 7 variant, which is the dominant one now in the U S and it'd be dominant for the foreseeable future down the line. We may see a rise in that P one from Brazil or B 1, 3, 5, 1 for South Africa, it's here, but it seems to be out competed by the [inaudible] variant from UK, as we get this under control, it might become a problem later on. So I'm already giving a heads up to people. Don't be surprised if you have to get a third dose of your Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or a second dose of the J and J vaccine, either later on this year or next year. And that boost may be slightly reconfigured to target those particular variants. I don't think we're going to need to get vaccinated every year, like, like flu, but anticipate at least in at least one additional boost.
John Darcie: (36:54)
Yeah, that, that was sort of my next question. You know, I actually had COVID myself in early December. I got the first dose of the modern vaccine a couple of days ago, and it knocked me out for 24 hours. It was sort of the classic COVID symptoms. And so it was just, I was curious about, you know, re vaccination, whether it's going to be like the flu, but you sort of answered that. Do you anticipate, remember
Peter Hotez: (37:16)
If you've gotten COVID in recovery, that's almost like your first dose of vaccination exactly. For your first immunization and some people, unfortunately, uh, don't handle the second immunization as well. So Anthony, if you get vaccinated today, this afternoon, don't make big plans for the next 1, 5, 5
Anthony Scaramucci: (37:37)
PM today. And, uh, you know, my wife had what was COVID arm, which I'm sure you've heard of, right. It was a 1% of the people, her arm grew up, you know, like a bee sting. Um, but like she always says is better than the alternative. And I think that's the thing we have to tell people. Uh, what you're doing is priming the immune system. You're, you're allowing the immune system to recognize the virus and respond to it and kill it before it starts to wreak havoc on your system and causes an overreaction, potential blood clotting.
Peter Hotez: (38:10)
Remember, it'll save your life. And, uh, that's the only, it's not socially, not social media is I use the word guarantee and people jumped on me for that. But it's about as close to a guarantee as you can have that you won't die from COVID. Uh, if you get, if you get fully vaccinated,
John Darcie: (38:29)
Where do you think we are? I have young kids. Anthony has young kids. Where do you think we are in terms of the research process around vaccinations for adolescents and children? And when do you think we'll have some finality on knowing what the best course of action is?
Peter Hotez: (38:43)
Well, today, or last night, Rutgers university announced they're going to require vaccinations for their college kids. And I think all the other colleges will follow suit about half a million college kids got infected, uh, last year. And then there were a hundred deaths on college campuses, a lot of that from staff. So I think it's very reasonable because we'll have the vaccines here for all universities, college campuses, especially for those living in the dorms to require vaccination. I also think we may have the data by the fall to immunize adolescents and 12 say 10 or 12 to 16 to 18. And, and that will make junior high schools, high schools, very safe places of teachers, staff, and the kids are vaccinated. I think for the little kids were probably a little further out, maybe by next year, we'll have that data maybe sooner, but I, I don't think it would be 10 next year.
Peter Hotez: (39:41)
And then some decision will be made. How, uh, how far down in age group you go, you know, maybe this would be given something like a measles vaccine and about one year of age. And the reason I say that if you're vaccinating pregnant women, now it looks like pregnant women will have antibodies on board in double transfer to the placenta and fetus and protect newborn babies for a period of time, but it may limit vaccine effectiveness in the first six months of life. So I'm guessing it may, could over time projecting way out in the future could be given almost like a preschool or measles vaccine,
John Darcie: (40:15)
Right? And my wife is pregnant having another child be breaking this news to some of my friends who maybe watch salt talks, but she got vaccinated, uh, at the urging of our doctor. And fortunately didn't have the same type of reaction I did to the first shot. Not that I am saying in any shape or form that I, it,
Peter Hotez: (40:36)
Well, first of all, mazal Tov, which has got vaccinated, the, um, you know, the pregnant women have not done well with this virus, very high rates of hospitalization, ICU admissions, much higher than non-pregnant women of the same age and a lot of deaths. Unfortunately. So even though we don't have all the I's dotted and T's crossed in terms of safety and efficacy data, um, there's now new data coming out about the, that works really well in pregnant women. We're still finishing all the safety studies, but the risk of what happens if you're pregnant and getting COVID, especially now with the [inaudible] variant is so concerning that most of us are recommended. Go ahead and get vaccinated. And, um, and now the American college of obstetrics and gynecology is saying, getting get vaccinated and the maternal fetal medicine society to saying get vaccinated. So you did the right thing.
John Darcie: (41:29)
Well, that's good to hear from you for sure. Last question I have your is about preparing for the next pandemic. So obviously we're, we're learning a lot from the, you know, in some ways failed response. And in some ways the response as it relates to vaccine development has been very encouraging. Do you think we're more prepared now for the big one? You know, it's, it's hard to even say that we got lucky in any way with COVID because you have in the U S more than half a million people dead and, and others, you know, sort of wounded from the vaccine as well as many others around the world, but this wasn't sort of the ultra deadly type of virus that could wipe out large parts of the human population. Do you think we've learned enough from this, you know, this pandemic, that the time, uh, that may be one that's more deadly around and we're going to be ready for
Peter Hotez: (42:14)
It? Well, this has been a tough virus because it's had this Janice face is to face on the one hand, you had people going into ICU and losing their lives. On the other hand, you had at least half the individuals with no symptoms and shedding, a lot of virus in their nose and mouth and walk, going into bars and, and public venues. And that's what made it so complicated. The way I respond to that is with each pandemic, we've learned something and we have improved infrastructure. So after SARS, in 2003, we had international health regulations, 2005 with after H one N one pandemic flu in 2009, we'd built the global health security agenda and, and, and, uh, and put in new infrastructure for monitoring flu, and then thereafter, Ebola and 2014 at Davos Sepi was created the coalition for epidemic preparedness innovation. So we do learn from epidemics.
Peter Hotez: (43:09)
I think the things that a few things have to happen for this one after this one, one, we need greater involvement at the G 20 countries, where it's, we still focus too much on the you that U S U K some of the Western European countries and the country known as the bill and Melinda gates foundation. It's it's, it's not enough. We've got to get full and vote always somehow after figure out a way to get China on board Russia on board, um, Japan, more on board, uh, Indonesia, all the Brazil, all the G 20 nations, that's gotta be a priority to G 20 summit to work together. We have to build capacity for making vaccines right now. No vaccines are made on the African continent, barely anything's made in Latin America, nothing was in the middle east. So building that infrastructure is going to be really important about the number of discussions about that.
Peter Hotez: (44:01)
And lastly, we've got a defeat anti-science and for that, I've been pushing hard on the Biden administration. If they'll do it to create an inter-agency task force, to really decide what they're going, how they're going to conquer this, recognize how deadly a threat this is. And it means not only bringing in the usual suspects, the health and human services agencies, but they're going to have to bring in a commerce and justice department. You're going to have to bring in state departments to do something about the Russian of weaponized health communication. Uh, and I'd like to see that the United nations level as well, uh, uh, bringing all the UN agencies to tackle this, because I see it as, uh, as I've said at the beginning of the program, I said, I see this as a bigger threat as nuclear proliferation, or terrorism. It's an arguably it's killed more people than those two things combined right now. And, uh, and yet there seems to be very little political will to want to do anything about it. That's so far, I'm sort of the lone person rattling the cage on this one. That, that just be, and maybe it's maybe I'm overreacting, just because I've had the bins so targeted by them for decades. I've lost my perspective, but, uh, I see this as something very serious. We need to confirm.
John Darcie: (45:22)
Yeah. I mean, people in their mind, they, they get worried about things like, uh, foreign terrorism and other things, but this is much more pernicious. And if you look at loss of life and damage to public health, this is much greater, but it doesn't crystallize in people's mind the same way.
Peter Hotez: (45:38)
I still haven't found a good way to talk about it, because what if I scare you see if I start to go on long enough, I start talking about human on and Neo Nazi grips and potent. And I start myself sounding the next was Luther since that the TV at night. So I need to find a, I mean, you know, if you listen to me long enough, you kind of understand it and, and, and start to agree, but, uh, I've got to figure out a way to say it in a more elegant way.
John Darcie: (46:04)
We don't blame you given the fact that you've been labeled the, you know, the O G vaccine king Republican. I mean, number one by the
Peter Hotez: (46:11)
G O G O G villain. Oh, gee villain.
John Darcie: (46:14)
Okay. Oh, gee villain. We'll leave it with, it's great to have the OJI villain on salt talks. Anthony, you have a final word for Dr. Hotez before we left.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:21)
You know, I, I, you know, I don't want to sound like a fanboy doctor, but I have an enormous amount of respect for you because when you're in the public guy and you know, I've been rolled on a few times, you know, when I got fired from the white house, I got rolled in bro broken glass by the nation's comedian. It was a, it was a, it's a brutal time, uh, for your family. And you're out there every day and you're taking buckshot every day. So for those reasons, I see you as a national hero, uh, and a global hero in this fight against the disinformation. And so it's a, once again, a public service announcement from the salt talks and all of us here, please get yourself vaccinated. The vaccines are safe, they'll protect you and your family they'll protect your loved ones, particularly your children. You're providing them a shield until we can get a vaccine up and running for them. And so if I got any of that wrong back, let me know, but, uh, that's our message. Brilliant.
Peter Hotez: (47:16)
That's brilliant. After the year in great public health communicator, we need more, we need more and we're,
Anthony Scaramucci: (47:21)
We're, we're thrilled to have you with us, and I hope we can invite you back. Uh, and the title of the book is preventing the next pandemic vaccine in a time of anti-science. And so I encourage people to read that book and share it with people that are reluctant to get the COVID-19 vaccine from one of the providers and started, thank you again for being on with us.
Peter Hotez: (47:43)
Thank you as a real honor, and enjoy speaking with both of you. It's been great.
John Darcie: (47:48)
Thank you, Dr. Hotez for joining us and thank you everybody for tuning into today's salt talk, you know, again, a big part of this battle is educating people. Uh, so please spread the word about this salt talk in particular, it's an important public service announcement. You know, both Anthony and I have gotten the vaccine. Dr. Hotez has gotten the vaccine. My pregnant wife has gotten the vaccine. Uh, everyone in my family has gotten the vaccine and, and everybody doing well and feeling a huge burden lifted off the mentally, which is another issue that's arisen, uh, from this pandemic is the mental health crisis that's been created by the fact that we can't go out and live relatively normalized, which getting vaccinated will allow you to do that. But, uh, just a reminder, if you miss any part of this episode or any of our previous episodes, you can access them all on our website@sault.org backslash talks, and also on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube. Please follow us on social media. Twitter is where we're most active at salt conference, but we're also on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And again, please spread the word about these salt talks. I say that about every episode, because I think every topic we cover is important for its own reason, but none more important than this one, but on behalf of Anthony and the entire salt team, this is John Darcie signing off for today. We hope to see you back here soon again on salt talks.