Good morning. Thank you for having me on. Biotech ability to take the biological structures of a cell and make it work for you. That started in 1973ith the first tools that were developed into whatt led eventually into the entire industry. How is the biotech industry playing a role in the coronavirus pandemic . Early in january this year, most of the biotechnology industry was focused on cancer. About 55 of it. With very little or no programs in covid. In the industry came together early in january, came together at bio and asked them tell us what they see in china. What they saw happening in china but quickly to 40 or 50 of them saying we are going to jump on finding yours vaccines right now. This was in january. Between now and january, over 770 programs were initiated. Pr what this meant was the entire industry pivoted not because have to but because we decided it was the right thing to do. The money was poured in, where we are today, we have close to 170 new vaccines on the horizon, intimate. In addition, you havech a whole host of antivirals in developed and a new science has come abo about. Talk about the new that was out yesterday with donna has nely 95 effective vaccine. This follows advisors ns biearlier, what role did the biotech industry play in the development of those vaccines, if any . Quite a lot. Maternal is a Biotech Company at its core. It was financed by capitalist, they took the wrist, stepped into an area which was entirely unknown in many senses and in the same way, you have pfizer partnering with a tiny Biotech Company in germany had similar similarly, like maternal, taken the step dealing with the kind of vaccine called an rna which was an outlier, complete outlier. Its been over threel decades ad nobody had taken a step forward but finally these two Small Companies stepped forward, took the risk, had investors help them and with the help other Large Companies like pfizer, the German Biotech Companies produced results in maternal has its results. Its front and center. Explain the science. The science is quite fascinating. Biotechnologies all about unpacking the tools to help your body and understanding how you make the cells work for you. The vaccines are an exact example of that. The Science Behind it says you have the genes that all the information that tells you how y ch sales should work in your body and instruct yourselves what to do. It doesnt to a special message called an rna. If you can treat the so to say i want you not to make a human protein but virus protein safely and appropriately, and what you can do is get the an rna into the human cells and the human cells will use it as a piece of information to start making the virus protein. The little eggs on the outside of the virus its making. When it does that, the body immediately reacts to it and says im going to attack that, im going to make antibodies and teach my white cells to defend the body against something you produced in science. Its really novel in the whole power of the t cells to be a little industrial factory inside you to make this protein. How are ourselves reacting right now to covid19 without these vaccines . What are they doing and what are you trickg them to not do . The problem with this when you get that, youre n prepared for the virus. The virus has bunch ofru other arms and weapons inside used to attack your cells. When the wholeirus gets into you, your body trieso react against the outside protein but too late. Youre being overwhelmed byll the other weapons the buyers brings. By the way, just to be very clear, some cases, your body wi be Strong Enough to have a response. Some people are but my people are not. Fo the moment, its important to understand that some people will defend against t weapons and others cant. An when you give a vaccine, youre stripping away all the weapo, youre basicallyutting in pure protein, making your body ready to arm itself against the bars and when the virus comes, your body is ready waiting to ambush it. What are they made of . Are they natural components . What are the dangers . What are potential side effects putting this in our body . There are always side effects to any medicine. Anybody who has taken aspirin or tylenol knows that. You have to be careful about what you do but in this instan instance, weve conquered the problem of these natural an rna. The problem is it was first thought that if you put them into your body, they would cau cause, cells would cause a reaction. Well, it took three decades and some really hard work of scientists never recognized the work initially. Some of them would dismiss it. To take away the ability of the mrna when you put into your body to cause the reaction. Now, we know very clearly that at least in the short term, when you give a couple shots of this, the chances of bad reaction have gone down dramatically because we have manipulated the mrna, the Information Package that contains all the data of the virus protein into your body. We got rid of that. I think that is exciting because that is a seminal invention. This is what is important, this whole event is called Something Else. Its not just that we may have cracked the code of developing a vaccine of covid. Likely we will also, from this begin to attack other viruses and disorders. Hiv, for exciting example. This is exciting. Our viewers are listening intently right now because were not getting any phone calls. I want to encourage them to start calling in with comments and questions. We live in the Eastern Central part of the country. Mountain c pacific 202 748800. Medical professionals 202741 2027418002. What you are just saying, this is a virus made up of the common cold, this is not the flu, correct. What does this mean, the discovery of a vaccine by these two companies, what does it mean for any future pandemics related to influenza like we saw with th spanish flu. Th is very good news from a technical perspective. Lets very clear. The technical problems that the biotech industry has largely had a huge jump, it is quite unimaginable the doors it opens up scientificay. However, those scientific dioveries will help fight back future problems will face an equalroblem unless we learn from what we have done. Educationally, and manufacturin lets go back to the technical side the technical side is very interestg. It takes a long time to develop a flu vacci todayay. You prepare for every year. However, this new kind of vaccine, it is conivable that from the start, 60in days later, he would have a new vaccine. W, weve seen it. Weve sn it happened right in front of our eyes right now. Normally it would take six to ten years for new vaccine. Weve had fro the start of zero, the beginni of the year, 12 months later, we are on the cusp of approval of two new vaccines. This is remarkable. Weve learned with the gold stanrd, the fda, all of thed global scientists, germany, u. S. , elsewhere to unravel these viruses, we have for the first time now, and opportunity to feel confident, if we can solve all these other nontechnical things, distribution and all of the things required for this, we know the biotech industry will be able to solve for future pandemics and that is very encouraging. Lets get to phone calls. Your on the air with doctor jeremy levin. Good morning. They ought to try highspeed trains automobiles off the roa roads. Offtopic. Mary in oklahoma. I am 72. How soon can you get approved by the cdc . How soon can i get the shot . Great question. We know if the final safety steps are satisfactory need to trust in the fda. They got a great process for doing this. By the end of the month, they will have reviewed the details and very shortly thereafter, i am confident they will do the same with modernity. Once they have the initial safety package, we know both pfizer and moderna and other companies are beginning manufacturing. So likely, 50000 dices doses by the end of this year. Once the first initial dose has gone to First Responders those in critical need, hopefully will decide this it is vital that there be cooperation between the Incoming Administration and Current Administration to ensure it goes smoothly. Once that happens, then immediately following, you and i and many like us will feel good that we are not going to get the distribution coming through over january through may. As soon it gets to you at your particular home, i dont know but i am confident the wheels are rolling and i am confident for a few reasons. Number one, im confident the leader of this process is one of the most outstanding track records for producing vaccines. He is exceptional and he is a doctor and knows exactly what he wants to do and exactly how to it. If we could about the politics and focus on science and distribution, we will get it soon. Michael and nevada. A. Why did they he it and do this and that . 90 of us dont know we havent, people make it soundli like peoe ar dying in the streets for god sakes. Go ahead. It is interesting because 2,150,000 plus 260,000 people dead, we are going up to 40000 unless we are super careful. Youre just n seeing it. Pele fget elections and politics. They dont forget a gravesite. Each person who dies is a person who is loved, somebody treased by the family. As far as i am concerned, it is not a question of dying inindustry. That happened actually fro that happened in the 1h century in europe. That did happen but right now, what we are dealing with is a National Catastrophe and frankly, anybody who sees it otherwise is really causing a problem. Let me be very blunt. You need, and those around you need to understand, this is not trivial. The economic consequences inhe physical consequences. The english it costs our nion. I am not prepared for one minute to say that anyone of those lives isnt importa. If it was cancer, he would be. If we had a pandemics of cancer, whatould you be saying . Its going day by day by day. Lets not kid ourselves. Diana, you are next. Ol thank you. Id like to ask doctor levin, i am s excited about the vaccine. I have been up and downbout, i guess because of the transition, things coming out on tweets and stuff. Ive had my doubts making me more on doubtful. I have stage three copd. I am 58 years old. How will we know whenhe time comes if we will be prioritized . Really good question. I am sorry aut the copd. I know how tough that is, ive treated many pients over the years and i fully understand what thiseans to you. It is a tough one. Look, number one, if we have a coherent medical response, lunch is based on medine, people like yourself, anybody with a Major Medical issue will be prioritized. I cannotma imagine that any of those running the program and or in the Incoming Administration an possibly not prioritized somebody of your kind. How will you know it . Im hoping tha locally your local government healthlt officials will beble to, tell you exactly where and wn. I would encourage you to have a discussi with them. Ask them, about this problem, what are you going to do . In my case for example, what i do is i go every two weeks to the town council and brief my town council here in connectic connecticut, the mayor of 37000 people, i educate everybody on every single thing we know. We got a response plan, everybody in the town knows whats going to happen. Everybody is in touch with the hospitals and doctors local gurgle government. So we are organized. I urge youo demand the same from your local community. Confident can you give diana and others have underlyin condions and taking other medications that this vaccine and t work is companies did would not interfere or have negative consequences for them. We dont know everything about these vcines yet. We really dont. We had aut 100,000 people in total, which is a lot. We dont get have a full profile of which patients will respond back people of color or diabetes, etc. Young or old but we are going to get there. The best information we have er decades and decades of use of vaccines is in general, they do not interfere. Just to put something to rest as we talk about this, there was a complete lie in 1986 that vaccines cause autism. Lie spread around the world and led to an enormous amount of doubt about vaccines. Unfortunately, that was a lie. Itas a complete lie and eventually retracted byhe publication that put that out. However, theamage was done. W youre asking me the right question, does the vaccine cause any problems . We dont know enough about it but based on all the vaccines weve seen over the years and the excellee we now have production and theafety profiles of the fda will look at and assess, i am very confident that these vaccines will have a significant effect with minimal outcome. I cant, but i am pretty sure. Enough so that i would recommend once the fdaec has approved it,y family,yself and others that i know tickets. Helen, you are next in california. Here is my concern. Ive bee reading articles about this virus will for couple of months and i have been reading articles on the same virus. As my concern we are political and influencing hard science. The fact that allf aac sudden wereoming out with this miracle vaccine. You know this is very dangerous. The medication only developed and testedd within what, a yea end you give it out to people . It defies the Scientific Method and im sure youre aware of that. Youre talking about the detrimental effect on the economy the pandemic is having. Yes, it is you do not inject people with untested medications and vaccines i dont know, as you have been influenced. The economist lets have him respond to th. Helen, great comments and i understand les talk about an experiment on people. Russia did that. They didnt even run through a te, they just basicallyin figured ey had a vaccine and started vaccinating peoe before it has been athingar remotely compared to what pfizer, sedona a other hundreds of companies are not involv in this have done and have galvanize you are right, unfortunaly, because of the enormou political elements y and i listen to, its coming from everywhere this was a huge amount of uncertainty in it. I urge you to take the following steps. Please, as we look at thi vaccine, understand we have a couple of supercold standards. Youre dealing wh an industry full of people want t find yours. Yours their lives. They will give these to their kids. This is the industry that delired you some of the most extraordinaryures cancer are emerging. Other antirus. Theres a lot of evidence industry, the intentions of the industry are pure. Then you have an fda. This is t gold standard. Theold sndard around the world and against enormous pressure, political pressures to hasten the process, do it before the election, we have to salute them because they said no, we are going to run the right process. Take a moment to read the letters and guidance as they put out. These are exceptional guidances. Have a lot of public what they arputting out the right approach. When i didnt have confidence in was prior to the standing up and saying more politics, which is refocusing on science. O then you have the large companie the first time ever, Large Companies alough politically they are going to follow the guidelines exactly as they began by theti fda in respect of political pressure. Pinkerton is a l in the industry has risen up in the Scientific Method you say is very powerful. It took three dades to solve this problem of the nra solved. It was tested pretty extensive. You that after giving this to millions of people we wont find things. Point, in you toour august of last year, the administration took away the very office that monitors for fety. Thats why the transition from the current efforts through to the new administration need to be serious. You noonly have to get the vaccine distributed efficiently to the right people you also have to monitor and have to monitor and understand what the safety issues are and like i said befe every measurement is a safety iue but i am confident based on what we have seen today that is is a very effective andafe approach. Katie from marylanyou are on the air. Question is im curious about th longterm situation once people start getting these vaccines, sically is covid going to go away orill we have to kee getting this every year for years to come. Guest superb questn. The best that w know today is number one, covid is not going away. Number two, we may have boosters buthe goo news about this is if the 90 plus efficacy and safety profile is there, this will be much better than the flu vaccinines weve taken. And yet it i only 40 to 60 effective so im very confident that in the pfile i would be willing to go to my walmart, cvs, any of the major distributors out there but it isnt going away. The genie is out of the bottle and unfortunately w are going to have to live with it. It isnt going away why, does it mutate or change every day like the flu . It is mutating. We do see that, but the good news about the mutations remember what i said earlier on this new type of vaccine can prove it in 60 days you could have a new version of the vaccine to attack anything the virus throws at us so you will and we have seen mutations. Im grateful that today we havent seen one that makes it more very land or more dangerous. We have seen the ones that seem to be able to infect more but not ones that have gone the added step that makes it a lot more vicious. There is also the possibility that over time will. Hos you are a medical professional. What do you do . Caller im an oncologist [inaudible] the effectiveness of the immune system how do the vaccines, how much effective will it be because we already receiving immuno suppressors that will develop a good strong antibody to offer some suggestions here said to you he himself is undergoing therapy and itsap part of it so how dos the vaccine work, we dont know enough about it however if you would be kind enough to link us together i would be happy to introduce this is a question thats been asked before and i suspect people of all of the nccancer centers need to know tt answer because many are undergoing the same kind of therapy and its not just cancer. Its like lupus and even multiple sclerosis where you have the efforts to reduce the immune system. Its a very important question and i dont have the answer for you but im sure wcan get you to the people who do. If folks go to your website, could this doctor and others reach out to you that way . Please do so. For the doctor that just asked his question and others that have questions will. Good morning and thank you for taking my call. I would like to ask how are the american peopleto expected to trust vaccine manufacturers when they will not even stand behind the product themselves and any type of problem they are just ref