very shelf professor bloom and such an honor such a pleasure talking to you thank you very much for your time many thanks for the invitation now he recently wrote an article for the new york times in which he stated that old world agrees that we need a vaccine and i'm glad if it's really so subtle not the moment the government's while he's under pressure to produce some sort of a solution some sort of a panacea but among scientists have they really arrived at the consensus that a vaccine is the ultimate weapon against cobbett 90. 9 essential weapons for sure. i don't believe it was old problems there are many problems about producing the sufficient scale distribution of a sense that we may become overcome the people may think once of invention natured that all of the problems are going away and that's not true either at the societal

level or at the individual level because it's unlikely that a fuss about actually will be on the percentage of sectors that are speaking about this over confidence even the bass of vaccines i mean this you mean the best possible scenario the vaccine will still have its limitations what's a realistic expectation at this point of time or whatever back you should be able to do i'll be talking about i don't know seasonally protected high risk groups or is it all about eliminating 1000 in its totality. it's certainly not about to limit or carrying the virus which is probably impossible when the only virus or terrible but not a minute or 2 just small they've now been trying to relive in a rodeo for 40 years to its cost something like $10.00 times the original estimate on it's still not totally successful so it would be a disaster if people stopped saying we must try to eradicate the virus because it

will prove it will prove impulsive o. and far too costly it's a question of control i heard you say before that historically vaccines have been prone to mission creep so to say these ever expanding objectives and part of that may have something to do with the fact that the vaccines are one of the fastest growing markets for big pharma but speaking of these idea that we battled develop vaccines against everything to do you take it as more commercially driven or is it perhaps just a form of magical thinking the psychological demand for hawaiian more safety which i think is a characteristic of our times. that's a very difficult question. i think the important thing to emphasize as that the kind of underlying dynamic of vaccine development the strange and in the

19 a is whereas previously vaccines have been seen as purely ringback in the only way we're launching a tour upon the kind of increasingly in the 1980 s. became seen as a commercially valuable commodity and there was a partial decoupling between the needs of the health system and the approaches of fracturing development but under a recently a great deal of the dynamic behind vaccine development risk commercial now it's more complicated to recruit 51 tree about it's very very much commercially driven not speaking about call it 900 specifically and i. think you would probably agree with me that it's not the data the ester fire says but when it lands on the meter bullet clearly compromised calculations it's dangerous magnified many times over and this is a line major issue with the race to vaccinate praised because i think it ignores

a vital part of what makes this virus. so dangerous and so deadly. don't you think that in focusing so much on vaccines we are essentially taking a shortcut and ignoring structural issues which make so many people not all but so many people so susceptible and small vulnerable not only tickled at 19 but to many other viruses as well. turkey agree and i mean that's that's an interesting question for a historian because. in 1998 there was a very famous come from a certain amount of king in kazakhstan which came up with the idea of healthful all on the idea was very much the vaccines or any specific disease focused acknowledged to be seen as a long way from bugs used within a much broader socio economic approach to dealing with their own health the

rejection by some place or as some by some experts of the idea that the infectious diseases had to be treated with a much broader array of let's say equalizing technologies providing basic health care and decent living conditions for every party and that was the only way of protecting us ultimately and vaccines had to be seen as one instrument in that role in that broader approach but some people prefer to forget about that and say we must take it with a system technology is a disease or time so. we lost the idea of focusing on those socio economic course interventions so and i think that's one of the tragedies are all present situation and why we become overreliant over we place too much faith in a back street you know it's the the magic bullet that will slow up with limbs

a lot of experts at voicing concerns about the speed of development and under investigated long term consequences but i would like to ask you about the vaccine design because most of the developers are currently in the face of the trials of focusing on a single viral protein the so-called spike protein as be immunised an adjective and . isn't that preaching dangerous isn't that putting most if not all that absent one busken well i don't know. i'm going to fire all edge of a store of banks and all of just. what struck me as the. 10 or so back seems that were counted eventually and now in trials indeed some of them i'm aching to solve taken of platforms like that and some of them i'm making here so of recombinant d.n.a. trigger knowledge is which are not yet been used in existing human license human

bankruptcy so i'm going i mean i'm not an expert on these these things but i wouldn't say i'd be morning trying to place my faith. in a vaccine that uses an established platform an established way of making vaccines i mean it's very complicated because most vaccines consists not only of. thing the one who. protects but also an active and which will strengthen the reaction well what i'm struck by is that how little coordination and any there is on being a national level it seems that everybody is just and rushing to bring a lot of whatever they had in development without really trying to 0 on you know how much their breaths and take on different areas of expertise is that in that example in a situation like this or do you think it would have been managed in an more

effective way and if so by well now we get into questions of politics i mean that's something. about the present situation of course is that we're now in a situation in which the the world health organization which had a kind of monopoly of moral forestry in the field and stream progressive we undermine. it's very difficult to say where and if consensus could be reached survey is. a structure kovacs riches been established by the world health organization and godfrey and something called c.p. which is basically all slow but to a number of launches countries have chosen not to participate in it it should be a way of ensuring some drove or anxious to backstreet and even in poor countries

but the big problem is that vaccine development in this band is becoming as been turned into a matter of global geopolitical strangeness and that's tragic we will definitely talk more about that but let me ask you a question about w.h.o. it's very hard to see you would just pass its policies in a balanced way partially because adults under doesn't immediately invokes all the. american political infighting but as color jeev being the w sure has lived up to the authority that it claims for in south or out these prices we needed to have a new fish person to we have to restore it. any of this this is so different a situation i'm from let's say the way in which smallpox was eradicated shipped in which the w.h.o. . presided over a very successful

a ready commission campaign in which the major paolo's in the wont whatever their political differences ship them aside in order to collaborate under the auspices of w.h.o. in ridding the well look this terrible deceived we are all still look bad so no at the moment w.h.o. khan to get them but the world will be better if you coach well that is no question about that i guess i'm trying to figure out the limits of the sort of chord a nation verses are in decision making because after the you make a very interesting point that many governments are now feeling themselves to be under pressure to conform to some sort of a single health policy regardless of the it in a logical situation on the ground there social taboos that cultural attitudes that budgets and i would argue that we have seen this play out vividly if they're out of the college 19th endemic when there is

a very strong push for strong quarantines even though that would have produced. major problems and now they're you know satyrs of us aside to has it really served us well i mean i'm not speaking about of course nation but these sort of single handed single policy approaches you and i gloat condemning regardless of what the situation really is on the ground i'm not even sure what the parameters or whatever of some turturro policy would be. for one of the issues of course at the moment is how to ensure that. when they're all is a vaccine away there are a number of vaccine they get to the places that then most needed that he wouldn't even agree he or the world wouldn't even agree as to what those places are i mean most people now saying. since the beginning there won't be enough vaccine for everybody. priority should be given to those those most urgently need of it

like. health care workers people in essential occupations but there's not likely to be much agreement as to who back tears. and what about the millions of people in refugee camps they're not going to be at the top or anybody's list of priorities and yet they could easily turn into a hotbed of global infection it's hard to say it's hard to think you're going to instantly implementable solution because the the situation we're in have such a deep roots going back let's say at least of the 98 years on top so we have a lot of issues to consider but for the time being our professor going to have to take a very short break we'll be back in just a few moments. of

the. to be used as a workable that there were policemen of the police who would go through the maze and sure there. were the sounds the guy who. was only the lead for almost any of the girls coming through for.

the field is still. the both of you so. the point was to use the book with those girls discovering that those that would use up before the play the music by the other media of course we. are. welcome back to the world to fight this tour or to learn professor emeritus of science and technology studies at the university of amsterdam or to someone just before the break we touched upon the geo political aspect of public health and you should value that argument in your new york times piece where you rode that their

race to develop a vaccine isn't just about saving lives it's also about power profit and national prestige is there anything wrong with that that's a very good christian. well we'd like to think. there's all about saving drives but in fact the very beginnings of public health in the 19th century the founder of public health hooterville called said don't public health his politics played by other means and will lead to think that all the fullest systems are dependent on the initiatives that are taken are in the interests of on health and in fact. that are not true to me because they also happen late in future story those other considerations are absolutely that's i mean there isn't the only thing you need to. look at is the sort of public health problem

profile at major countries and you know the bad you know people's interest and not at the top of the bed and now each talked a lot about the fact that it will act. to backwards and i wonder what equitable even means in these deniz isn't the government's 1st obligation to its own citizens yes i suppose it is inevitable and i suppose politically well politically inevitable for sure their governments will think 1st about their their own citizens but then we get into the vexed question of who on whose we whose obstacles. i'm british where i'm pretty sure i'm ducks i've been living in a country which is not the country of my birth for a long time the deep lation is now a very mobile. it because it's more difficult than it might have been. 50 years ago even to say who our own people are so yes it's

inevitable i think collision communicable that got him elected politicians will give priority to their own citizens some bunch. there tends to be somehow down to buy a home so for those who are not over consider to be our school who is our where do we draw from lunch now i want to ask you specifically about national misty's because. this may be a self-serving question before you remember that the russians were there 1st you register that you're in a vaccine and they've received a lot of negative press in the west a lot of allegations that the problem is sacrificing our jacket as if it was shall or glory even though russian developers are going for the same stages as our western colleagues they're publishing their results in the same medical journals like the labs and i want to be on such air politically and just politically charged

issue how does one distinguish legitimate concerns from politically driven and actives. well for most of us or to people because regionally go what's available in the public media i've seen the reactions to. the vague to the launch of the russian backseat no longer registration it's not necessary in order to go a star these based b. try as i mean that's the baby how the russian process works when the one hand it's true or right as far as i understand thought phase 3 trials of that fraction of not being completed on the other hand i have no doubt order of the negative publicity in the west is promptly moti very jaded by both political and commercial interests . i mean. russia one previously the soviet union had

a long tradition of making that actually and on a very long scandal that's sure and i think the only thing we can probably agree on is that nobody really agree so knows where the 1st generally available and effective function will come from now there is 11 more important distinction between them they are russian and the west and approaches to your taxes and. part learned it from from your own writing because in the west as you write this states used to be involved in the production of saxons but it's no longer the case in those countries since primarily a corporate down to prise in russia most vaccines are still developed produced and overseen by the state and i wonder if there is any difference in how the scenes made how they are developed how they test the child and marketed how they sell how they've used depending on who runs the back of the business by the it's the state

or whether except for preventive price who as are times i'm working with people from 9 country is on a book. there twitter writing on exactly how this shift from a public to private domain to place in each country is very complicated question i'd rather own i'd rather come back into yes when we finished our book. i think on the one hand it was true that many of the state in strict troops in many countries were. underfunded perhaps insufficiently wretched like troops but also were denied access to the most sophisticated technology areas by commercial companies that are patent to you on the one hand and. those in strict troops have certain deficiences without any doubt but people trusted while they produced the horse people knew that they will have to produce the tools that their

national health system requires about. there is no doubt that the o. in stripy own public sector institutes rich indeed in most countries of vanished all are in process of being dismantled. where there was a deficiency as was seen as trustworthy as it were some of them so the interests of the health of the people to british and they were not much if at all influenced by the markets all commercial considerations to wheedle something for sure and that's the rationale of the book while working on i'm looking forward to reading it because you're younger i was very very interesting if fact in that book you also mentioned that. this attitude towards vaccines as these the the holy grail of public health as the me to acknowledge ease of control and prevention

was in part foreign because of their rivalry did and the soviet union and the united states he alluded to that actually him and his. earlier that the united states was pushing for vaccines and that it's ok if you any and was advocating abt rother socio economic approach. fall we. cobbett 19 pandemic which really demonstrated i think this same deal says infectious and metabolic diseases i mean it's really a hybrid disease at its core do you think that will change do you think there would be more are sort of appreciation of how sick and commercial practices may. jeopardize public health today extended then the state may not be even able to deal with that because it even without calling 1000 many states were already struggling with the rates of diabetes and heart heart disease etc that were primarily produced by you know runaway consumption of certain full.

well just one slight correction be the emphasis on a broader approach can should move from the from the or from the server to nuke it also came from a doctor or a chair and the director general of that every chair at their time over time mahler who was from norway general also a trade it has to be brought. whether we can ever go back to that. who knows i mean i mean i don't think the brutal system that's very quick to look what to be done from the financial crisis of 10 years ago what you read. from previous epidemics we're not very good at learning because it seems to say oh interest trumps knowledge well you seem to be very pessimistic and i think they're quite good fuel very inspiring examples of let's say sort of broader human interest

in mind and one of them in my view is the polio vaccine hackery do you imagine this accident before as as an example of sort of geopolitical competition and this audience trumpeting its success at their successes in producing that backs and but behind it it is actually a story of collaboration because they saw that scientists god that their regional sample from that american colleague who had adopted time no chances of getting bad backs him into a production because it was based on an attenuated polio virus rather than in it and activated by that the united states was favoring at that time so collaboration and pretty large scale collaboration it was possible even to hide of the cold war surely it should be possible now of course i would like to think that to expulsion from i would like to think that we can tackle the social and economic courses both towards the emergence of new viral diseases. susceptibility to infection.

it's hard to know who. are we do i mean it would need it would require transformation. ways of living if we are if we are political leaders are really to facing seriously perhaps perhaps it's possible i would like to think it's possible. i don't see the seeds of it yet what makes me think you got stuck being skeptical maybe my questions actually absence i want to finish with a very practical question based on in part on on your book ask about have accents became so controversial because you know that if you know them and master and yet you recognise the 2nd has a patient and suspicion at around the issue of vaccines is not unwarranted because they were instances of a method call and commercially driven paddling of vaccines now how should parents

go out about it should they research every single vaccine and there i think currently trying to 6 recommended by the dollar and shown more than a 3rd seemed into about men i mean how do you make an informed decision on such a complicated issue when you're sitting there by yourself in your living room and you're trying to decide what's best for your child well i think one thing won't one thing on their to say to the pope and sometimes both wester throw a different light on vaccine has i'm sure you're going to show that the reasons that something like 50 percent of people in many countries in some countries are now saying they wouldn't take a back shouldn't against the code 19 vaccines even when there is one so on the one hand there's the question of reestablishing people strong strain of banks because we need people to accept one if it's going to have any benefit to compare any benefit the other questioner or so to choose to adopt

a policy question to choose between. which vaccines to introduce into the international or that's the nation scheme and how to choose an alternative i didn't want to listen we all want to have lunch. bob probably haven't as the vaccines have to be acceptable to the population before long they are rolled out in a in a society because if an office acceptable there is a real risk of undermining faith in the vaccination system as a whole and i think governments are under such pressure to introduce a vaccine rapidly that the willingness to consult and to ensure acceptability are somehow been eroded so i think. people have to trust the vaccine we have to think about how to reestablish trust both in vaccination generally and inappropriate 19 facts when we have and that raises questions that go beyond beyond

. there are about transgender political systems and in our institutions stress of living we are out of time there really grateful for you joining us today thank you very much for being frank a very much an interesting discussion and a fearful western hope to syria again next week and will that part of. the. movie that the belief is smear those who really can chill

a. chill if they can just be suitably. left with that i suppose. so but. you know none of us stupina bill episodes didn't go to see you. during your force where you could be near must of missed if not thoughts about spirit i did it was emotional 6 but i'm intending no. stadia. the. show is to stress the school issue and that's for you to post to put by some sort of move. to a story you listen to they will but it's. ringback ringback join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us of the

world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. further rallies are held across bella rose's protests against the president and a 2nd month lead to hundreds of arrests our correspondent is there. now john did the president restrained her to leave to leave the presidency for a 2nd round of elections they want to change. bus in the stories that shape the week germany agrees to work with moscow want to probe into the alleged poisoning of opposition figure alexina valmy an issue that fired up german lawmakers. why does novell need such a level of protection from a security service political murder he's part of the putin system why would the russian government be so stupid and even let an avanti fly out to germany instead of hiding him in russia. some former u.k. prime minister's condemned the government's plan to override.