Congressional director. It contains all the Contact Information you need to stay in touch with members of congress, federal agencies, and state governors. Order your copy online today. An historic victory has dramatically unfolded at the university of michigan. A new medical age with a monumental report that proves the vaccine against polio proves to be a success. A day of triumph for the developer of the vaccine. He arrives with the head of the National Foundation for infantile paralysis. Hundreds of reporters and scientists from all over the nation gather for the momentous announcement. Probably on hand are the people who receive the first injections. The vaccine test pronounced up to 90 effective. This gigantic experiment is symbolic of the equally great foundation, both scientific and philanthropic, without which it could not have been conceived or executed. The entire world heralded the discovery, which is assuring an end to one of the most dreadful diseases. Susan that is in april, 1955 , a very triumphant announcement of the successful polio vaccine. Elena conis, you suggest there are some cautionary notes when you look at the history of the polio vaccine that are relative to today. What are the largest concerns . Elena it is a really good question. I think the history of polio has a lot of lessons. The history of a number of pandemic diseases have a lot for us to keep in mind. Over the last few months, i have heard people referred to the development of the vaccine as an indication of our ability to come up with effective vaccines against current epidemic diseases. It is true in 1955 we were incredibly relieved to have the first effective polio vaccine developed using a fairly new technique. One that made a vaccine using chemicals to essentially kill the virus so that it would still be familiar to the body. The body could elicit an immune response but not be second by sickened by the viral material. It is important both that we were so desperate for a vaccine at the time. It is important that people across the country felt personally invested in the vaccines development. It is important that this was a method what happens was once the vaccine was developed and approved and it was approved for use within a few hours after the test results came out, the nation had to scramble to ensure everybody who needed the vaccine most would get access. There had been planning in the works for at least a year before the vaccine was approved for market. That planning involved a National Foundation. Setting aside millions to ensure there would be a lot of vaccine purchased for Young Children who were most at risk for polio. That plan included getting manufacturers on board and ready to begin producing the vaccine once it was approved for market use. Yet, we still had distribution problems. We still had manufacturing problems. We still had Public Relations problems. People who were terrified the vaccine was going to go to shareholders of certain companies. Some of these companies actually did send letters to their shareholders saying you will get the vaccine first. Do not worry. People were afraid doctors would charge exorbitant fees or certain people would stockpile the vaccine. Many of these fears were realized. The federal government had to step in and assume a bigger role in ensuring the vaccine was distributed equitably and also that it was in effect shared in a way that did not introduce a safety problem. They were fortunate they were forced into that position after some safety problems emerged. Susan susan we get to spend an hour with you to learn about the polio pandemic and where the comparisons help us understand and where the world has changed. Let me start by asking you what was or what is it because it is still a live disease in much of the world. What is polio . Elena here in the u. S. , it is something children get vaccinated against. We do not tend to think of it terribly much. It is a viral infection. We have known that since the early 1900s it is something. People general early 1900s. It is something people generally acquire after drinking food contaminated with fecal matter. The virus passes through the gastrointestinal system of humans. When you are infected with the virus, it causes disease in Young Children. Sometimes that disease is an apparent is not apparent. In older children, that virus can trigger a debilitating disease that can paralyze. It attacks the nervous system. It can leave people in some of the worst cases, essentially paralyzed from the neck down. Sometimes this is temporary. Sometimes it is permanent. In the early part of the 20th century, what we had was a number of small outbreaks of polio in the early 1900s. 1910s, 1920s, 1930s. And then, we had more and more outbreaks. These were terrifying outbreaks. Nobody wanted to see a young child struck with paralysis. It was one of the most frightening things people could imagine. Susan one of the quotes i found is that by the middle of the 20 century, polio was described as one of the most frightening Health Problems in the world. Was it the paralysis that was so frightening for people . Elena it was the paralysis. It was the unpredictability of it. A town could go several years without a case of polio. All of a sudden, have an outbreak that left huge numbers of children and adults infected. There was a famous photo spread in life magazine in 1944 where they sent photographers down to hickory, North Carolina, a relatively small and somewhat rural town that suddenly felt like a war zone. There were so many children and adults struck that it exceeded their medical capacity to provide care for the patients who in the worst cases needed to be housed in something called an iron lung, and enormous contraption that fed from the neck down that essentially breathed for the patient. Hickory, North Carolina provided a vivid snapshot to towns that had not experienced a polio epidemic. It showed hastily constructed hospitals around any green spaces available. Vehicle shuttling in supplies. It showed doctors and nurses having to call on neighboring communities to bring in whoever they could to help treat these patients and help those who were most likely to survive at least survive the worst of the disease and figure out how to rehabilitate them. In some cases, the paralysis was fleeting. In some cases, certain limbs would remain paralyzed for decades if not for life. Susan the scenes of the tents and assistance from the military will be very familiar to people who have been watching the last three months unfold. Elena absolutely. It is exactly like that. People saw a Quiet Community suddenly torn to shreds and people were afraid to leave their homes. In fact, in some cases did not need shelter in place orders because once the epidemic became clear, people stayed at home. They kept their kids close. Health department would put up flyers saying stay inside. Avoid gatherings. Avoid quote unquote new people or people you do not know. These places entirely shut down. At the same time, if they had a large number of patients, all that remained visible with something that looked like a war zone. Susan we have a headline from a san antonio newspaper. All san antonio schools closed as two more suspect cases reported. People were actively social distancing while the real cause of polio was unknown at that point . Elena throughout the early decades of the 20th century, people knew there was a virus involved with polios transmission. What people did not know was how that virus was transmitted from one person to another. There were a number of theories. People thought it was transmitted through contaminated food. People thought it might have been transmitted by flies picking up the virus and taking it from one place to another. A lot of blame, especially in the middle decades of the first half of the 20th century, fell on immigrant communities. People felt that immigrants were bringing the disease into the u. S. This led to a variety of efforts to control the disease. Social distancing, yes although people did not call it that at the time. Some communities responded with acrosstheboard social distancing or stay in place. In other cases, they focused on children because it was children at the early school age, five to nine, who were thought to be the most vulnerable. Some communities banned gatherings and closed festivals and pools and things like that to keep children at home and away from clusters of people. Susan while this was happening globally, the most famous case had to be Franklin Delano roosevelt who contracted the disease in 1929. He was 39, which seems outside of the parameters you described. How did this person, how did his contraction of polio impact the amount of understanding paid to polio. Elena in recent decades, and number of people have looked back and questioned whether he actually did have polio. It is not really matter if he did or not because at the time, that was his understanding and it was the nations understanding. He contracted it the story goes after a day in the country with his family. He was swimming and playing outside. Had a long active day. Came home and was leveled. The next day, woke up and had some of the telltale signs and gradually paralysis set in. He was older than the poster child for polio. He was an adult. He did recover. He did not die. But he did have lasting paralysis, which he took great pains to hide as he pursued his political career. He had agreements with the press corps wherever he went that they would only photograph him in ways that his wheelchair and leg braces would not be seen. The story of his polio was one of triumph. A man who was struck down in the prime of his life overcame the disease and then went on to an absolutely unprecedented in many ways political career. Roosevelts polio became a story of inspiration for many other polio patients. The other thing that roosevelt did was he started a small foundation. He started it and then handed it over to his law partner. Basil oconnor as roosevelt , person erred more up pursued as roosevelt pursued more opportunities, his partner grew the foundation before it became an enormous philanthropy. Initially, it was called the foundation for infantile paralysis. That was because polio was known as infantile paralysis. Later, they called it the march of dimes, which may be a more familiar name to viewers. They were incredibly creative to bringing attention to the disease and using roosevelt to mobilize the public to donate funds and time to find a cure. Susan i am sure some people listening to this who will remember march of dimes solicitations. It was really a grasp roots a grassroots movement. Elena it really was. Oconnor started with this idea that when roosevelt became president , he was such a beloved president that oconnor thought, lets have an annual birthday ball. People will hold these birthday balls on the president s birthday in their communities and use those birthday balls as a fundraiser for infantile paralysis or polio. These birthday balls really took off. People signed up in communities across the country, held their own birthday parties for roosevelt. Served food, danced, brought people together and raised money and donated it to this national philanthropy. What oconnor did that was incredibly brilliant for the time, he started these birthday balls in the 1930s for a country coming out of the depression. This was an incredible feat. Oconnor was savvy in thinking about how he could make everybody feel they could contribute. He thought he sought hollywood musicians, Marilyn Munro from Louis Armstrong to record radio and tv spots to appear in posters. In time, came up with such an enormous cadre of hollywood supporters that it was hard for anybody to not have heard of the march of dimes. There is a story of how the march of dimes got its name, which probably some of your viewers have heard. One of the celebrities oconnor recruited to the cause was the comedian eddie cantor who was doing a radio appearance. He was encouraging people to donate to the cause of infantile paralysis. He again following oconnors vision was trying to convince people, just give whatever you can. If everybody puts a dime in an envelope, we will have a march of dimes to the white house. He used this phrase, march of dimes. Apparently the radio spy was so successful that the white house mail was flooded with dimes. The idea march of dimes struck. Susan it paralyzed to it parallels to the social media we are seeing with hollywood celebrities and youtube celebrities soliciting the publics support for social distancing, use of masks and that sort of thing. The celebrity role in addressing these epidemics and pandemics seems to be something that has been around for a while. Elena it has been around for a while. I do not think anybody had done it to the extent the march of dimes had done it. They never really let go of it. The march of dimes still exists. Their heyday was a moment in which they were first using radio heavily and then were savvy about using tv as tv started to become more common in american households. As the research on polio developed, as their fund shuttled in some cases hundreds of iron lungs across the country and in to hardhit communities, they would show footage. Then they would have a spot with the celebrities, Elvis Pressley for instance, doing his part to show how important the cause was. So it was so it has been around for a long time. Susan in the mid1940s, without understanding the source of the polio virus, people were beginning to use techniques that to our 2020 ears and eyes look shocking. We have a newsreel from 1946. We will come back and talk about this method used to combat polio. With a possibility of a grave infantile paralysis epidemic, san antonio authorities attack germs on a citywide front. Sections of the city are sprayed with the insecticide. Every suspected spot is sprayed. The drastic cleanup is ordered as polio and diseases show an increase. In the part, precautions are taken to prevent gatherings of youngsters. Literally tons of ddt are used on this disease that attacks our young. Susan war contributes one of its discoveries to save life. You have done a lot of work on ddt. How extensive was its use in the country . Now we know it has a lot of dangers for the human body. How soon where the side effects of its use apparent . Elena that is a really good question. The clip showed ddt was developed in the Second World War. It was discovered first by a scientist at a swift drug company. The u. S. Army, scientist and medical officers, tested it throughout the world during the war. They were absolutely blown away by how effective ddt was at killing bugs like mosquitoes that carry diseases like malaria and yellow fever. There was this incredible enthusiasm during the war because these were diseases that in tropical and semi tropical settings had proved debilitating to troops in previous wars. Now we had a way of killing the bugs that spread them in doing so in a way that did not seem to cause any harm. If you think about it at the time, some of the common pesticides and chemicals we used to kill mosquitoes before the Second World War were chemicals that included arsenic and lead. People would purchase produce at the market and it would have residue on it. They would take it home and hopefully wash it to remove the residue. If you did not, you could end up with lead poisoning or arsenic poisoning. Ddt was an incredible discovery for the time. You could spray not only fields of mosquitoes, but you could spray orchards and send those crops to market. What happened was after the war, there were so many manufacturers that had been producing ddt during the war that were eager to sell it to the American Consumer after the war. There was also this widespread knowledge. Everyone had watched the newsreel of planes spraying ddt over islands in the pacific and protecting u. S. And allied troops from malaria. People were familiar with the idea that ddt killed problematic insects. After the war, they were left with polio epidemics in the u. S. People were struggling with these competing theories on how it spread and struggling to find ways to prevent its spread. I mentioned one of the theories about polio was it was possibly spread by flies. Very quickly, people put two and two together and thought, why dont we go ahead and kill all the flies with ddt . Now that ddt is available for americans to buy, lets spray as widely as we can and try to keep polio at bay. In fact, the National Foundation for infantile paralysis had an agreement with the army that as soon as the army no longer needed the ddt it was consuming, they would free up surplus supplies and free up some of the vehicles equipped to emit ddt fog and the National Foundation would coordinate with a town that had a couple cases of polio and maybe on the case of an epidemic. It would send in these army tanks and bombers that were equipped with spray tanks strapped to their underbellys. They would coat the town with ddt to see if that kept a polio epidemic at bay. What was probably most fascinating about this was that the initial results were hard to interpret. They sprayed one town, which they divided in half. It seemed like there was less polio on one side of the town than there was on the others of the town. Then they sprayed the entire town that had the first hints of a polio epidemic and the epidemic never materialized. A lot of people were eager to believe we had a cure, that we had a way of preventing polio. Very quickly, counties and cities across the u. S. Got incredibly excited and started buying large quantities of ddt to either prepare for a polio outbreak or if they had a couple of cases. Even though at this time the National Foundation and many of the scientists that supported it were desperately asking the public to stop and wait until more scientific testing was done, the public cannot wait. Towns from san antonio to places in idaho, illinois, they would spray from top to bottom. Because the understanding was that ddt was not toxic, people thought, leave your kids outside. It smelled kind of sweet. It did not leave a sticky residue. People thought it was a safe place to be after the war. It was remarkable how a cloud of ddt suddenly became a safe place to be. Susan did it create its own Health Problem . Elena it did in time. While ddt was being tested during the war, the scientist testing it in the u. S. In georgia and florida in particular and Washington State were pointing out that if they used too much ddt or too high a concentration in the environment, they were noticing a die off of not just problematic insects but beneficial insects like bees. They were noticing fish and frogs were dying too. What they said was we need to watch out because this is a toxic chemical. We do not know what the full effects might be. Some scientists also were testing it before it was widely used and showed that when dogs or goats were fed food that had ddt in it or residue on it, they had the ddt in the fat of their bodies. In the female animals, it accumulated in breastmilk. In one experiment, i think it was in the butter of milk from goats. The butter had so much ddt that the butter killed flies. These are some of the first hints that ddt was not entirely safe. It was very quickly apparent that it was a horrible toxin and toxic material and was damaging to a number of species and the environment and that it build up inside the human body. It took us decades. We are still trying to understand the full Health Effects of ddt. It took decades to make clear that ddt exposure, especially at certain times of life, could cause certain forms of cancer later on. It turns out ddt was a weak carcinogen. There is still some debate about the science. There are still investigations into other effects of ddt. Things like alzheimers and parkinsons disease that are still ongoing and diabetes. Susan as the 1940s rolled in to the 1950s, the number of polio outbreaks continued to rise. It looks like 1952 was a watershed year. The statistics often reported from that year, 57,000 plus cases. 3100 plus deaths. This is a shocking number. Of the 57,000, 21,269 cases of paralysis. As that was happening, walk us through the development of vaccines. Where was that taking place around the country and was it simply foundations supporting it or was the government involved . Susan that is a really good question elena that is a really good question. 1952 was a horrible year. Those numbers gripped the nation with fear. They are far lower than the coronavirus numbers we are seeing today. That might be another important lesson for us. What happened was the foundation knew that it had to invest not just in treatment for polio patients it also in either a cure or a means of prevention. By the early 1950s, it was supporting a number of teams of scientists who were working on different types of vaccines. Eventually, there were a couple of scientists who pulled ahead of the pack. One group was working on a vaccine that used Chemical Treatment to essentially kill the vaccine so that im sorry. Kill the virus. That this virus could be put into a vaccine. Another group was developing a more classic type of vaccine in which they effectively created a weakened version of the virus. It was still polio virus, but it was supposed to not cause polio. There were a number of scientists working in both camps. Some of the research they conducted, a lot of this was supported by the National Foundation for infantile paralysis. But a number of these scientists had been funded during the second road war by the federal government, which had funded them to try to come up with vaccines during the war to protect troops. Not from polio but from things like flow and measles and mumps for instance. There were a numbers of a number of advances in vaccine science during the war that some of these drawn as they were working hard to find a polio vaccine. There was one team at hartford that at harvard during the war that was funded by the government and was working aroundtheclock to develop a measles vaccine. They developed helpful techniques to culture the virus in the lab, but as soon as the war ended, they shifted entirely. By then, they were being funded wholly by the National Foundation for infantile paralysis. Not to develop a measles vaccine but to develop a polio vaccine. The reason why i point this out is because in fact, there was this backandforth going on. In war, we had a different set of priorities. Scientific attention was focused on those. After the war, our scientific priorities shifted again. Once we came up with a polio vaccine, the technology that was developed to produce that polio vaccine was used as the basis and inspiration for a number of vaccines that followed. We ended up with a bunch of new vaccines and the 1960s. There was this backandforth of scientific attention being focused on different diseases depending on what the National Priority was at the time. We already know from the early clip that the polio vaccine that made it across the finish line first was the one developed by jonas salk. He was determined that he had the vision for what was going to be an effective vaccine. With the foundations help, one of the biggest vaccine trials was conducted with Something Like 1. 2 million american children. I think there were another 400,000 who were also tested in canada and finland. This is an unprecedented number of people participating ive a trial of a new vaccine participating in trial of a new vaccine. When the vaccine was tested, it was shown to protect against what were known to be three types of poliovirus. It was very effective against two of the types. It was mostly effective against the third type. Such details did not matter to a country that was so desperate for anything to let them go back to normal. Susan i have another historic video from 1954 as the massive testing was taking place. This brings together a lot of threads because people recognize the use of celebrities to join people to the cause. Every child has a right to their health and happiness. That is right. There are an awful lot of children that do not even have that. There are a lot of parents who still are not healthy and happy now who live in fear. I know i do. The fear is polio. Infantile paralysis. Polio is no respecter of people. The rich, the poor, strong, the weak, no one is immune. Bassoon, perhaps within a year, there may be a vaccine. A vaccine available tall that to all that may be the answer. That is right. There is a trial vaccine now being tested. It has been tested successfully on 700 people. Now, the largescale tests must be conducted. Hundreds of thousands of people will be in nokia late at starting next month. Vaccines and tests caused a great deal of money. Heres your chance to help get this test done as quickly as possible. Give every dime and dollar you can spare to the 1954 march of dimes. Susan that is lucille ball and desi arnaz. They talked about the enormous effort. The numbers globally, 1. 8 million schoolchildren. 20,000 physicians were involved in testing in the United States and 64,000 school officials. You have done so much work on vaccines. Was there not Public Resistance to being inoculated with a substance still being tested . Elena absolutely. There was a resistance. That resistance did not get any media attention. Pretty close to none at the time. It is hard to find traces of it, but it was there. It is also there was also incredible acceptance. It strikes me as not too unlike the cases we see today. People eager to sign up as participants in early tests of the vaccines that are in development. Back then, people were very excited to sign up their children for these trials. In some cases, people were disappointed if they were not able to sign their children up. At least that was the story as it was recorded. There was resistance. In fact, there were people who had been resistant to vaccines for decades going back to the 19th century. Among them were people who had their own philosophies. There were people who did not believe in drugs generally or had concerns about modern technology. There were some critics who put the polio vaccine in the same category as such things as cocacola and cigarettes and pesticides. There were also people who had religious arguments against taking the vaccine. None of these people were mounting new arguments that were only relevant because there was a polio vaccine. These ideas, these sources of resistance to any vaccine and vaccination generally were ageold. We have been seeing them in this country for decades if not close to a century by then. We have been seeing them globally since the first vaccine was developed against smallpox in the 1790s. What is striking about the 1950s, testing and then the rollout of the polio vaccine to me is how little attention the media gave to criticism and voices of skepticism compared to how much we give to it now. But also, how much excitement and enthusiasm there was for the vaccine even as it was in its early stages. Even if this meant not testing it necessarily in adults but in children too. Susan we saw the big announcement in 1955. They may have to move into the story of what happened in manufacturing. First, the cdc was founded in 1946. Was it playing a role in all of this as we are seeing a play today . Elena very different role. Compared to today, passive role. The cdc stepped up its involvement after the vaccine was developed and stepped up its involvement even more after the first batch of bad vaccines was identified. I will go ahead and tell the story briefly. The need to develop as much vaccine as possible meant that a number of drug manufacturers were recruited to produce the polio vaccine as soon as it was licensed for use. One of these Drug Companies was cutter laboratories in berkeley, california where i am. This is a decadesold drug company. It was workers they believed were following the protocol. This was weeks into a National Vaccination effort. A number of cases were occurring in people who were vaccinated. A handful or doesnt of those cases or a dozen of those cases were deadly. This was traced back to the labs and the fact that in their facility, they had not properly killed all of the virus that was included. Some live poliovirus was making its way into this batch of vaccine. This was absolutely terrifying. The Surgeon General asked for a complete halt until they could figure out what was going on. Gradually, they brought manufacturers back on line one at a time ensuring they were uptodate on all of their safety particle. In the meantime, epidemiologists from the cdc were invited to help figure out and traced the cause of these cases of polio. They were the ones who helped trace it back to cutter labs. They were invited to help come up with a protocol for moving forward. The cdc had been created during the Second World War. The initial name was it had malaria in its title. Illyria, control and war areas. Malaria, control and war areas. After the war, with the war over and malaria gone from the u. S. , the cdcs epidemiologists and scientists were looking for the next way they could provide value to the u. S. Polio outbreaks were one way, although absent any treatment or cure, cdc epidemiologists were hardpressed to help. Once the vaccine was available, they suddenly had a new role to play. After this incident, which was called the cutter incident, the cdc scientists became more and more visible as the voice of authority and expertise on polio vaccination and subsequently vaccination generally. Susan we have a video from 1991 of jonas salk. He became a global celebrity much to his chagrin. Here he is talking in 1991 about the development about some of the manufacturing problems so people can see what he looked and sounded like. Within a matter of 10 days or two weeks, after it went into production and was in use, there was a report of cases of polio caused by the vaccine. There was no such encounter in the field trial. It was encountered only as a result of the use of the vaccine from one laboratory. The vaccine was suspended. The use was suspended for a short time. Reintroduced again after the problem was isolated and that vaccine was withdrawn. All the others were used. That is an example of some of the hazards one has to deal with particularly at that level of experimentation. Susan a couple quick questions. Is it true he did not ever seek a patent on his polio vaccine . Elena that is true. He publicly said he did not believe a patent was the morally responsible thing to do. He believed the vaccine belonged to the people. He saw the vaccine as crucial to health and wellbeing. He did not as far as i know seek a patent. It is also worth going back. He was in intense competition with especially albert stated who in cincinnati was meeting with a nether was leading a team of scientists developing another type of vaccine. One that used a live weakened version of the virus. Salk was devastated by the cutter incident. There was this constant tension once alberts vaccine came to market. Which should be the better product and what should be the prevailing polio vaccine for the country. They each had different advantages and disadvantages. To this day, we still use both of them globally although in the global polio eradication, which is seeking to eliminate polio in the last remaining countries, we tend to use alberts vaccine, which is administered orally and requires no shots and far fewer doses. Susan the last recorded case of polio in the added states was 1979. What took so long for it to be eradicated . Elena that is an interesting question. A historian would say, that is fast. You think about it, the smallpox vaccine was developed in the late 1790s. The last smallpox case any of the u. S. Was 1948 in the u. S. Was 1948. For polio, that timeline seems compressed. What happened with polio to give you a big picture view of what transpired after the first vaccine was approved, there was so much involvement and activity in the first for years after salks vaccine was approved Vaccination Coverage skyrocketed. Millions of people got vaccinated those first couple of years and polio cases plummeted between 1955 in 1957. Then, what happened after 1957 was you started to see this gradual departure between those who had the means, they couldve for the time and money to take their kids to the doctor on an annual basis, they stayed uptodate on the news and followed expert advice. These people continued to get their kids vaccinated while other people who did not have the means or were not aware of the need were getting their kids vaccinated at a far lower rate. In 1958 and 1959, you start to see polio cases creeping back up just a little bit. And then, you start seeing outbreaks. These are predominately happening in poor communities, in urban areas where poor communities are living in crowded conditions and are out of reach of access to health care and do not have routine visits to doctors. In those areas, epidemiologists and others start to realize that people are not getting vaccinated at the same rate. We had this push and pull throughout the late 1950s into the 1960s. By the 1970s, polio vaccination was widespread among children. By that time, we had enough immune adults that it became most important to focus on children. We were capturing them largely through walls that required vaccination for school. It became clear the remaining cases were those caused by the live virus vaccine, which sometimes led to Community Transmission of polio virus as the virus was shed. For example, in the fecal matter of children. We then started to move away from that vaccine and switchback to this salk vaccine. And effectively got to a place where we had no more polio in this country. Susan we have 10 minutes left. Lets begin with President Trump talking about the development of vaccines. Tremendous progress is being made on vaccines. In fact, we have ready to go in terms of transportation and logistics. We have over 2 million ready to go if it checks out for safety. Susan you coauthored a piece in the new york times, which gave us the idea for talking to you further about this. What are the kinds of challenges the American Public should be aware of about the development, Safe Development and distribution of a Coronavirus Vaccine . Elena one of the first of them is the fact that any vaccine that is tested is tested in a large group of people but not nearly as large a group of people as it will ultimately be used in. In this country, we try to monitor as best we can vaccines as they are used so that we can keep tabs on any unwanted side effects that only show up when one million or 2 Million People have received the vaccine. That is one thing i think we need to keep in mind. We have well over a hundred different vaccines any in development right now all , using different approaches to development. This means that there may be a top vaccine candidate that uses a technology that we have not used or used extensively before. We may be calling on manufacturers who have not actually manufactured a product like this before. In such a case, we will not know if there have been manufacturing problems until the vaccines are widely used. I do not mean to sound exceptionally cynical here. We have spent using polio as our starting point decades refining and adding on to the safety and regulatory procedures in place for ensuring drugs they get to market are not just safe but also effective at the same time and that effectiveness does not compromise safety and vice versa. What we have heard the last couple of months is some of our leaders telling us a number of regulatory protocols are now being set aside and they are being set aside in the interest of bringing effective drugs to market quickly. I hope this does not have negative consequences. One can never say. I just know that we have spent decades putting these regulatory processes in place for a reason. I hope that one, we put them back in place when and if we can put this pandemic behind us and two, the ways in which we are trying to make Vaccine Development more efficient now do not, in any great cost. We will already be dealing with steep cost because we will face distribution problems. We will face problems of equity. Even if we have enough vaccine for everybody, there will be those who have the privilege to say, i am not comfortable getting it until 5 Million People have been vaccinated. There will be those who say, i have to get a vaccine because i have to go to work and make sure i am safe and i can provide for my family. I guarantee we will see problems of equity. Historians are not supposed to guarantee anything about the future, but this is one thing i feel concern about. Susan what did not exist in the 1950s was genomic science. How does the cracking of the gene help with the developing of the vaccine today . Elena in a couple of ways. Im not a scientist so i was a saul just say a brief thing. My understanding is once you can see the genetics of a virus like this, scientists can design a vaccine very quickly. That means like an architect, they can come up with a blueprint for it. That does not necessarily mean it will be quick to build it or test it but you can design it , quickly. You can design it in a refined, specific way. It also means you can produce vaccines that look potentially very different from the polio vaccine we have been talking about. They do not contain a whole virus. They just contain genetic material from the virus or that resembled the virus genetic material and the human body recognizes it. I will highlight those two differences. Susan last month, there was a headline in the Washington Post that read that coronavirus may never go away even with a vaccine. Are we as a Global Society looking at eradication of covid19 or containment . Elena i think we probably need to focus on both. One thing i am struck by as a historian and not a scientist is i am now living through a pandemic that has caused the kind of social disorder i have read about in history books and have never lived through in my own lifetime. Polio is a close example, but that happened before i was born. If you look at the history of infectious diseases, you see diseases such as smallpox, plague is another, yellow fever, cholera. Smallpox is the only one that has been eradicated. Polio is close to eradication. Plague is still with us. People think we have not had that since the black death in the middle ages, but we just contain it and we manage it. That is a possibility for coronavirus. We may never develop a vaccine against it. It may be with us for centuries. It may be with us for millennia. If it is, it will mean we have found ways of not just containing it but adapting to it as well. Susan in our few minutes left, i want to tell people you wrote a book about vaccines called vaccine nation. Still widely available if people are interested. What is your current book project you are working on . Elena right now, i am working on a book about the pesticide ddt and how our interpretation of scientific results changes over time not just because science changes but because culture, politics, economics changes and that all process to understand the process differently. Susan so as you mentioned as we close hear that your living through history as a Public Health and medical historian, what are you and your colleagues looking at as we go through the coronavirus experience and what kind of data are you gathering that will help record this for history and help a future understanding of it . Elena a lot of fellow historians are looking at Current Media coverage and social media discourse and government reports and studies and trying to amass digital archives of the current pandemic. I think others are also thinking about those of us who are historians in medicine know that a pandemic grossly exposes the inequities in society and if there are problems before the pandemic, the pandemic will worsen them. We have seen that with this one. It is a striking illustration of something that history has shown us over and over again. Whether it was polio, smallpox, cholera in the 19th century, all of these diseases show us the difference between those who have privilege and those who do not. We are definitely seeing that this time. Susan when are you expecting to welcome students into the classroom again . Elena i should not speak for my university. I have been told we will welcome small groups of students back into our classroom and much larger groups online. Im still meeting with students through the summer who are working on some of this work with me. Susan thank you very much for giving cspan an hour. Dr. Elena conis is a Public Health and medical historian. In a previous life, she was a journalist and a columnist. Thank you. Elena thank you so much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] all q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. During the summer months, reach out to your to your elected officials was cspan congressional directory. It contains all the Contact Information you need to stay in touch with members of congress, order your copy online today at cspan store. Org. Next, we hear from british Prime Minister boris johnson. In question time, he addressed the coronavirus pandemic and made comments on the recent stabbing in reading, that killed three people including one american. From Northern Ireland. We now head 2 questions for the Prime Minister and we start with sarah atherton. This morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others in addition to my duties in this house i will have further meetings later today. My constituents welcome the announcement by chief medical officers of Northern Ireland and england, from 43, i have seen a reduction in the number
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