university arizona and author of this perk human programming. booktv on c-span2. meredith wadman talks about the race to create vaccinations. . >> hello everyone welcome to the of book festival i am sarah jackson i am a proud residents and epidemiologist at the university of maryland. read from the support the arts and humanities and their pleas to bring the fabulous event to the generous support of our volunteers. i have a few announcements

please silence your devices your feedback is valuable surveys are available in by submitting one you can be entered into the drawing for a visa a gift card yawp there will be signing copies of her book after the presentation this is a freak event but it does help be a stability by a book the more you buy them or they'll want to send all others your to support us.therefor to benefit the local economyecon so if you enjoy the of program please buy a book here today i am very pleased to introduce a doctor meredith wadman with an impressive career receivediology

her ph.d. from stanford and an oxford university as a rhodes scholar and a degree in journalism at columbia writing for "the new york times" and "washington post" and currently a staff writer as an epidemiologist in training our is exciting to read her book "the vaccine race" the cdc considers vaccinations and number one public health achievement of the 20th-century that they have saved him -- millions of lives with the smallpox has been eradicated in the surge of other diseases like polio or chickenpox are a thing of the past not only about great achievements of public health paul so the men and women and children who help to make these vaccines possible for those

so contemporary interviews of the key players of those individuals are kept alive on played in public -- of the pages. dr. wadman does not shy away from vaccine experiments "the vaccine race" reminds us we learn from the past so the story written in the future is more ethically grounded so it is not just for the nerd but those interested in american history and politics. we're very lucky dr. wadman is here with us today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thanks to the of gas and also to the gaithersburg book festival organizers said cannot think of a better way to spend a

saturday them with those who love to read and write. was born between medical family my mother was a public health nurse my father was a doctor we grew up with the idea that vaccinations were good and important but not until as ad medical student on a pediatrics rotation during the apartheid era that really came home and a visceral way how lucky we were to be protected by these vaccines.crowd, to be overcrowded underfunded costabile -- hospital and typically by the time kids got there they were very sick and malnourished and with the lack of vaccinations in

combination that is a devastating cycle that willas cripple the kids to invading their brains or loans withth an ammonia. this is not advancing. this toddler had just died for lack of the $0.29 back seen so i went on to realize my calling would be a writer and aicher great a article about the hospital and that was the moment of truth for me that i thought i will goo to journalism and be a writer and i am lucky enough to do that over 20 years. this is like going from the red sox to the yankees but we are one big happy family.

so why write the book called "the vaccine race"? there is a lot of things i will touch on three major points the cells are called wi-38 that sells the race was to get the of rubella vaccine in the '60s soul also talk about those that were used to lower abused to get new therapies so how did i get started began with another book with the events with a 31 year-old largely illiterate and the african-american woman dying

of cervical cancer that that became ubiquitous and hugely important to medical research and the author of the of book spends a lot of time to examine the impact and i could not put it down of so i couple of years later i a came across the letter from "science" magazine that identifies himself as a scientist california who said that the cells were getting all the attention but i had some in 1962 from the aborted fetus that was for hundreds of millions of people that i got into a huge intellectual property fight with the nih about who all those cells and the questions that are still unanswered today that letter

leap off the page very soon after he was 84 at the time to this very day he is still going strong after his 90th birthday that i phoned him and i said it sells there is the untold story and he said is there ever.o have a c so shortly thereafter i had a college reunion and i was able to visit him to talk about of the wi-38 cells from the beginning he took me down memory lane of an elegant brownstones on the pennsylvania campus it was a creepy mausoleum of 19th century american anatomy with a horrible anatomical

specimens for croatia and at a time the man in the middleec was recruited to give the institute a new life he was a larger-than-life character a polish immigrant escaping from hitler in the nick of time fled with his family to the states he could discuss agrology and loved wine and women in definitely looked on american scientists to be just a bit to colonial so when he hired a working class philadelphia in who brought himself up in and abroad as well as from medical microbiology he

looked on him as a technician for experiments for other outstanding virologist all over the world. well he was very ambitious and not about to be made a second-class citizen or a household servant. so he began to get fetus's from abortions conducted across the street at the hospital of the university of pennsylvania.in every that was criminal in every state in this era in pennsylvania there is not even the exception do to save the life of the mother you could get 10 years of auth labor however

authorities were book aside from major medical centersed where they could do a medical therapeutic abortion justified by doctors and they would tolerate that so that as though they've got the flow of fetus's every few months and roadie's fetus is in a lab dish so if you should do that and they should grow forever they were a moral and if they died it was a scrap of the scientist sir the nutritious to nourished of seoul's was deficient so on they kept dying first the cells from the first fetus started to get decrepit then the next he thought he was screwing

up and doing all types of experiments what was he doing wrong? you can see on the of left is healthy cells from the lungs and on the right to their old and disorganized and decrepit in the end stages of life. why? he finally saw what decades of scientists had not seen that cells are as marshall provided they are normal. cancer cells by definition will grow forever but these were from healthy normal fetuses dying in a published a paper that said as much and took a lot of flak but that made hayfleck name and they will note that 50 cell

divisions that they will go through before they will die if they are normal. so immediately there was tremendous interest they wanted to get a hold of the of fetal cells in the extent that normal biology of aging.rested the n.i.h. was equally t interested because they wanted to find scientists to look into the cells but all of those had died so what he would do the nih funded than to start developing new fetal cells. a lot of money came from these nih to a contract of hayfleck $120,000 per year in the '60s. there was a tiny clause if you finish the contract of the materials developed under that become the property of the federal government and its hours to keep and you will hand them

back. hayfleck also had an interest to develop a new line for vaccines and having to do with the rhesus monkey you will recall 1955 the polio vaccine was introduced the great victory of the era but to solve that that was from the monkey kidney cells in that became apparent through the '50s that the rhesus monkey kidney cells was a silent virus sent tens of millions of children were vaccinated with assault vaccine and '70s were in the vaccine sold 30 million children were exposed to the monkey virus that penetrated the vaccine but they thought it was killed by the sermaldehyde the same

thought to kill the of the rest of the regulators did not worry now virus we know they are a piece of genetic material. they don't eat or drink or sleep they must invade the cells to reproduce so a virus will invade or hijack the machinery or make copies of itself that is how viruses replicate so to make a viral vaccines you need the cells that is the use ofus the monkey kidney cells. so on the left the unsung heroine came from the town of less than 200 and west virginia working her way

from a ph.d. in cincinnati realizing the rhesus monkey kidney cells heartache a particular monkey virus that caused a fatal cancer in her laboratory hamster she alerted her bosses was silenced and devoted and put w to work in the supply room and she just put up with the punishment. the only newspaper that paid attention was the national enquirer which in effect got the story right. yes there was a polio vaccine cover-up and there was this virus in the fall vaccine nobody knew in the long term so was very clear cause cancer in the hamsters and soon it you scrape the

cheek it could so they move to another species going forward but hayfleck looked at this and thought what we get the souls from one clean normal fetus to multiplied in the lab then we can use them and know they are safe and dispense with importing the monkeys and slaughtering them.rce of so hayfleck needed the source of the aborted fetus to get the medical history the surgeons at the university did not care about his work was a paid in the but the he understood its importanceonnection disconnections he could contact the institute in stockholm where abortions were legal to obtain a the

fetus from the mother ofof several young children and husband was not to abuse and was out of town and not much help and an alcoholic with a criminal record she could not read -- raise another child that was legal but not easy many would not perform them and by the time she swund the swedish gynecologist to agree to perform the abortion issue was four months pregnant now i'm trying to race ahead after this goes into effectchesg was 8 inches long wrapped in a cloth the longs were dissected and flown to philadelphia where hayfleckum was waiting in the summer ofhe , 1962 social change was coming many events were of

what so hayfleck spent the summer to riding of wi-38 cells from mrs. x pds and 8 created 800 each had to retrieve million souls each annual had the potential to divide another 40 times seven you realize between one little bottle of 10 million cells will produce 22 tons when fully expanded so he created a supply that was infinite especially if you realize if you freeze them that ampule one year or one decade later they will begin dividing again and will remember how many times they divided then

will continue up through 50 divisions roughly so they still use these cells today from the summer of 62.d about te hayfleck was excited doing lab test it was clear that these were clean and safe and national back to interview mrs. x to make sure that the family was free of disease this is how she learned the fetus was taken. she made it clear there was no problems but then ran into the wrong man rob murray. very smart harvard educated physician and an expert in virology but he was so specific of u.s. medical

corps with a terrible accident of the yellow fever vaccine the tens of thousands of military menth were infected with hepatitissb h c that mistakenly infected the yellow fever vaccine so put the fear of god in marie so 13 years later when this is ruled out he was second in command in the vaccine safety division were a company called cutter laboratories had the liveir poliovirus 192 people were paralyzed they have the recall it was a terrible situation there went to the secretary of health and human services fired so he moved into his boss's position and became the chief of vaccine regulator for the entire united

states. he was in the nih becauseonly lr that is or regulation resided in the government. he kept his own counsel was slow to make decisions, very conservative and did not want to make changes unless he was forced to serve you looked at hayfleck and was afraid they were going to cause cancer even european countries and clinical trials were yet rushing to use this but hayfleck cells were stymied.ne in 19 so in 1964 a rebel of epidemic descended on the united states also known as german measles it is like a fever or you might not know

you are infected however if of a pregnant woman gets it it is devastating on the fetus and might seek a virus -- bezique a virus rubella double hit nearly every fetus in the first trimester see you can imagine with no vaccine available women were terrified by it some more than 20,000 babies were born blind or deaf or intellectually disabled or the shrunken heads like the zika virus babies at least 5,000 shows do terminate they could not be sure so it was very scary. picture

those are pictures of then rubella virus particles moving between the cells so then it affects virtually every fetal organ one of the outcomes is cataracts this is steven who was born during this epidemic blind and deaf and of heart defects. and as a self-made mangr growing up in the bronx medical working his way through medical school was almost shut down because he was jewish earned a scholarship that meant the medical center could not turn himho down for medical school he had his heart set to emulate the institute who was a polio vaccine pioneer in he

decided he would do something with this epidemic he was already working in britain where the epidemic hit a year earlier said he returned to new philadelphia and soon became known as the only doctor in philadelphia who could run a blood test to tell a pregnant woman if she was infected. the blood then couples would say it asked fake a pleased if the blood test was positive andare a if they chose to abort he would say could i please have the fetus i'm trying to locate those cells so he received 31 fetus's in a calendar year 1964 fetus number 27 that he captured the rebel a virus of those wi-38 cells that is a sense

of the anxiety that the women experienced so being against big competition many major drug companies that every woman of child-bearing age would want the vaccineld plus probably regulators wouldn't recommend it for young children to not expose their mothers smithkline french also another very sophisticated belgian company so they are very stubborn and determined so when he developed the vaccine he found a powerless institutionalized population to go to the archbishop of philadelphia that operated a

orphanage called st. vincent's whole for children to test the vaccine on the toddlers. i will pause to read a little bit from the book. and i'm projecting okay? saints this is home for children was made of red brick and three stories tall taking up most of the city block the rings were marked in those words with the roman catholic archdiocese owned and operated the home well called them an orphanage the ball of parents of the kids that live there were dead they were destitute or sick or in

jail summer and married women who forced to give upup their children for adoptional fm there was no maternity hospital for the unwed mothers and when the babies were born if not adopted in the first year they were passed to the orphanage many were black or mixed-race. so the good those that played and bathed with those toddlers in the assembly line fashion they're all so to adoptive stray dogs in a maintenance man but the nuns began to the missionary in war though white habits. evidence simple single rooms gro and worship in a small chapel on the ground floor.

it was a spartan place with no doors on the bathrooms the nuns tried to make up in love with day lacked in physical warmth to make sure the kids were out every day on the playground and read to them as storytelling. one sister in her late 20s knew that they were children and there were so many so the level of care and attention than she could not p provide the data at a foster family arrived to take one play away -- to take one boy away or losing a sister on the face of a deaf girl that the present that the archbishop handed to her at

the annual christmas party in f was a decoration in an empty box so the family plots gotgr the green light for the rubella vaccine for those living at st. vincent's in his letter requesting permission he did not explain he captured the vaccine virus from one aborted fever it -- reducing garner from another as he was very antiabortion. in 1973 he recalled thepr supreme court decision in roe v wade the unspeakable tragedy for the nation that set in motion events that unspeakable to contemplate.ad. 1964 but he gave the steady a go-ahead. so i will stop there. >> i thought this was 50

minutes but now it is 40. so i will move on quickly.callyp so basically to be outgunnedwon with that political favoritism won approval for their rubella vaccine the key round every six to seven years so there was a tremendous weight to get it before 70 when the next epidemic was expected and in 69 the regulators approved the pharmaceutical whole manufacture vaccines but it emerged because of one womananoa the first chairwoman ofom pediatrics at yale who paid close attention to the studies that the vaccine was better to do generate better levels of antibodies dorothy

did not take no for an answer was that the chief of vaccine making to live in fear and trepidation and shed told them in no uncertain terms you have the inferior vaccine he was profane side cannot tell you what he told her but to this day as of 1979 with the mmi areru vaccine that merck manufactured that has the rubella vaccine in and to this day it is put into american babies that are injected with it to each year and also exported to 40

other countries no doubt it has prevented tens of millions of abortions and fetal abnormalities to this day. the first vaccine made was the wi-38 cells that arrived was finally approved by u.s. regulators in 1972 because murray was finally pushed out of his job as the vaccine regulator in regulation was moved to the fda's of the polio vaccine was the first made from those wi-38 cells. what happened to hayfleck? you left in in 62 having to hand those souls over when the contract was up now he was treated as a second-class citizen ofit those world-class biologist

and found a better job at stanford. so he had the designs from a hold on. so by 68 there was a rubella vaccine and they hated to deal with finances in causally trying to keep the institute to float wrote saying right now that patented recipe i can give you all the souls you would need so let's make the deal and hayfleck said over my dead body he did not even give me the courtesy to know about this.

so nih had a meeting with him to say you need to turn the cells back over to us before you leave in june. so after hayfleck saw the letter he went quietly to the basement of the institute when nobody was looking packed all the remaining vials of the cells into of portable liquid nitrogen in refrigerator that looked like a bomb strapped it to the back of the city and put his kids and the other seat in drove the 3,000 miles to california through the grand canyon. [laughter] n.i.h. was fit to be tied when leaving was discovered however nothing was done

about it and though hayfleck decided to set up a company in the '70s to sell the cells to merck he signed a contract with them from the rubella vaccine would have been worth about $1 million personally executed for shortly after he signed at the nih got wind he was selling them and sent out the investigator to investigate hayfleck so he resigned under pressure from stanford and spent many years in the academic wilderness so he said at the time this really is a greek tragedy a man at the height of his power brought about his own downfall. front phage

that is the front page of the new york times in 1976 the headline says the nih investigator souls the cells by the united states. if you talk to anyone to day the hayfleck discovery of cellular and mortality they're probably not aware of his journey in the '70s and also of the contributionon he made to getting safe cellular factories into circulation for the viral vaccines. the british imitated his method in 1966 so more than vacg 6 billion doses of vaccine

shingles and chickenpox and polio there are over 50 vaccinated with a vaccine made from those wi-38 cells. hayfleck fought the u.s. over five years finally 1981 times were changing with the 180-degree turn to start looking out for the next commercial opportunity because a lot came in 1980 that said institutions could own intellectual property even if funded at the institutions of governmenturageo so they were encouraged to become entrepreneurs so was hard to keep prosecuting

hayfleck so they settled he was allowed to keep six ampules of wi-38 cells many are in manassas as we speak under 24/7 is surveillance. he kept them in his garage in california for years you drive back and forth every couple months to buy liquid nitrogen finally 2006 he decided enough it is time because they're like my children but it is time for them to leave home. he sent them off to a repository in new jersey. mrs. facts never saw a penny that made them that millionse of dollars that is the echo

of the story. so now i will open for questions. [applause] >> i have a question that is on and off topic but you referenced those kidney cells from the rhesus monkeys to what is your thought of the theory that one reason was that the epicenter of hiv because they had been vaccinated with those vaccinations?. >> is a big controversy about that at the turn of the centuries after theirle land back they found absolutely no trace of hiv or anything to implicate those vaccines in fact the

royal society in britain did day long steady and that has been completely debunked. that is not where hiv came from. it is not a contributing factor. i am walsall happy to talk about current a vaccine politics there is a lot of questions about that. >> with abortion legal now it seems it would be relatively simple to get the new cell line. is that pursued? this seems unfair to magic lines butal coma any competent pharmaceutical company could start one whatever they wanted. >> there is a two-part

question so that same technology has gone past using those whole cells now they use dna so it is a little antiquated but one that you would not use going forward by and large. but there is a long experience with these vaccines made using thesert cells just like to have their own personalities in the lab if you're very familiar with bovine you don't want to start over using another because there is a huge experience accumulated around that line.d, the chi .

.... .... >> that would have been able to answer that question. there is a source of data that can definitively answer that question.

but the bottom line was it seems very unlikely. if you are interested in getting a lot more information about that and the whole virus and the vaccine there is a book called the virus and the vaccine published about ten years ago that has a definite point of view. chen was the first author on that. yeah. >> where do we stand in the race for the ebola vaccine? >> i think it is about to be deployed in the democratic republic of congo. a vaccine hasn't been approved but there is an outbreak and it may move to put the candidate vaccine into the use that is

thought to be effective. i am not up to speed on where the other ebola candidates are. there have not been one licensed i can tell you that much but i know there are several candidates. >> thank you for all of the research that you have put into this. i am wondering why the myth about vaccines and autism have persisted despite the scientific audience? and why the so-called an anti-vaxxers still have a strong sway over a certain amount of the population when the scientific consensus is that these vaccines don't cause autism. >> yeah, that is a really good question. a lot of people ask themselves this. i think it is part of a

mentality right now that is common across issues cluing global warming where a distrust in authority, distrust of experti expertise, questioning if this exists. that is some of it. but if your child has autism there is a deep need to know there is a reason/cause. you want to be able to tell a story about what caused it to happen. and what we don't know isn't satisfying. i think unfortunately because of the age of childhood vaccination is simultaneous with the time autism symptoms come about. when you for fraudsters like andrew wakefield, not to mention he has been thrown out of the medical profession, it doesn't really matter because you are

looking for a story and someone who even once was in authority is telling you that story and it does something psychically. i cannot really explain it. but one thing that is really important is not to be am dismissive or patonizing of people coming from that point of view because i think that makes people take it even harder. there needs to be empathy and listening and then maybe education and evidence but starting with the listening and empathy. >> does anyone wonder? well i was able to discover that mrs. x is still living in sweden in a conversation with my translator she made it clear she did not want to be interviewed and wanted this to be a closed a chapter in her life, but she did say they did this without my knowledge and that would never be allowed today.

yes? >> given the discussion in the importance of it today especially with the henrietta lacks becoming more forefront with the hbo movie, have you seen the hbo movie and do you think think you gave justice to the issue at hand? >> the movie was a movie. you know, it was made for tv. tremendous acting job, but you could not get in the movie the whole back story about the cells and their use and it was meant to be a drama and that's what it was. i would recommend anyone that saw the movie and is intrigued the book is richer and that's often the case with books or versus movies, i would say. yes?

>> given the discussion in the importance of it today especially with the henrietta lacks becoming more forefront with the hbo movie, have you seen the hbo movie and do you think think you gave justice to the issue at hand? nidentified speaker >> the movie was a movie. you know, it was made for tv. tremendous acting job, but you could not get in the movie the whole back story about the cells and their use and it was meant to be a drama and that's what it was. i would recommend anyone that saw the movie and is intrigued the book is richer and that's often the case with books or versus movies, i would say. yes? >> this is a comment more than a question, but a couple months ago i started working at johns hopkins and i work with quite a number of african-american people who are incredibly well-educated and still have fear about visiting certain parts of the hospital. i mean, that affect of that is not just the community that lives around the hospital. it's cute how much damage that is. >> the story you said you would tell us about the other woman a scientist who had gotten punished and relegated to the lab. could you tell us about her. >> she persisted in her research and worked at the nih and retired i believe at 70 and she gave a oral history revealing what happened shortly before she passed away. greatly admiring of her. she would not let herself be turned aside and i am now being

told it's time, so thank you all very much for attending. [applause] >> bill nye, science guy, discusses how to create critical change in every all at once. jessy esingerreports on how the justice department handles white coller crime. george malone recounts the growth of the wall street opinion page in free people, free market. and exploring exile from lativa

in among the living and the dead. and israeli journalist ben casp looks at the life of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. and the director for the hague center of strategic center reports on how the internet is being used as a medium in warfare. and paul butler examines the policing of black men in his new book choke hold. look for the titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the future on booktv c-span. >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> i am reading a book i am really enjoying. tom fredman's latest "thank you for being late". i am a big fan of him.

he did my alma matter back in april. i think it is an important bridge as to where we are in technology today and where we will be in the next ten years talking about morris theory and things going on. i am usually reading multiple books. i just got meechm's book on president andrew jackson. looking forward to getting into that. i finished the a book earlier about a biography on americans who made a difference. i have been a big aviation buff and followed development, was on the science committee. i recommend reading to all my staff. we learn every day. the challenge i always have is trying to find time to read because of all the other reading i have to do, i tell students, i didn't care for homework very much when i was in high school

and university. and i look back and do a lot more homework today than i did in school. if i had applied myself then i have a lot of c's that could have been a's. reading is the key. having a strong foundation and good reading habits regardless of what you are reading whether it is world history, american history, biographies, certain times in the history of mankind, science, you know? it is a way that we make ourselves better educated but the thirst for knowledge, that curiosity that we have in each of us in one way or another, is enhanced by good reading habits and reading regularly. of course the challenge many of us have is trying to make sure we find the time doing things we

have to read besides things we have to read every day. >> thank you, congressman. >> thank you. appreciate it. keep reading >> booktv wants to know what you are reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter at booktv. or instagram at book underscore tv. or post it to our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. booktv on c-span2; television for serious readers. >> here is a look at authors recently featured on booktv afterward. heath davis looked ad gender identity. rachel schneider and robert morduch report on how low income families manage partly sunnyy. and utah senator mark lee studies the men who fought against the government in america's founding.

naomi cline offers her thoughts on the trump president. and a report on how smear tactics are used to influence public opinion. and mother board senior editor, brain merchant, traces the creation and development of the i-phone. >> some of the first reported technology developed was a stone throw away from touch and web technology. you can touch maps online and move pictures on the i-phone. but ben stump contains he developed the earliest technology and since he didn't patent this stuff, it went into the slip stream of technology that would wind up later in the i-phone. but the guy who really put it on the table so apple could see it was wane westerman who had this incredible story. he is this brilliant engineer

from the midwest who comes from a family that is plagued by disability and he had severe hand disabilities. when he was a ph.d student -- >> he was trying to write his ph.d dissertation and couldn't. he had to stop. he looked around at the market to see if there were alternatives and there were not any. he trained some of the algorithms with the eye stuff to start recognizing gestures and he came up with a pad that let him do his ph.d and seemed like a good alternative for people who seemed like they had this problem with their hand. instead of typing it was a lighter touch and you could do things with swiping and gestures. it was a lot larger than what we

could do with the i-phone today. he started manufacturing this product called finger works. it was beloved by a small percentage of users. people who had repetative strain injuries and people who thought it was cool to swipe and do gestures. it was an opaque black pad you would use next to the mouse or keyboard. a junior engineer at apple happened to bring one win and the guys who i mentioned earlier who were doing the free wheeling experimentation said what is that. and that literally became the focal point for their experiment and that was what was under the projector when they wheeled in a

projector screen to combine this touch sensing unit. they put a piece of paper over it, and beamed down the home screen of a mac at the time so you could touch mac software and that was what really sparked the entire trajectory of the i-phone. >> after ward wears every saturday and sunday. you can watch all previous after wards on our website, booktv.org. >> hello, everyone. welcome. my name is joe garvin and i am the author event buyer here at university bookstore. i want to thank you all for co