welcome to worlds apart given to roughly a year since comet 19 irish the running roughshod over all aspects of our lives with its lights creaking and acting everything we used to take effect rapid but is that since milly but shirley and mabel are released along downstage the question is what is the needle postponed demick normal going to be one of the boundaries of personal social and international responsibility on the matters of how well to discuss that i'm now joined by luke and professor of biochemistry at trinity college dublin professor neal it's great to talk to you thank you very much for your time now are you happy to be here now i know that your head be back seem enthusiastic you've been arguing that government should be banging down doris to get access to proven that scenes are regarded most of their source regardless of political considerations do you think though that the vaccination campaign to

global vaccination campaign the way it has been playing out so far is really free from politics no certainly not i mean it's a bit of a shame if someone is 'd because science says deliver these vaccines are not real scientists we did our job you know why i wasn't directly involved in it but i know lots of the scientists who were and they did a tremendous job there we've got we've got probably 11 highly efficacious safe vaccine is available you know in the mission now is vaccinate the whole world as quickly as we can and you see i wasn't with most things in life humans get involved you see and then we see the various issues there are well let's take the research and the controversy surrounding the astra zeneca baxley which much of europe including your own nature of our land the use of which out was the standard in much of europe gz you clotting issue which share according attitude of well how hardness ation is not substantiated by day get out i don't think there is any. reason to

suspect that the german know if they enjoy the irish a how bitter it is would be if. more negligent or more ignorant about science than w.h.o. colleagues how then do you owe explain the decision to the whole day of the japs well again it's complicated i guess you know maybe e.m.e.a. remember the european medicines agency they are on record as saying the risk for blood clotting is extremely narrow and in no way should stop people using this vaccine w.h.o. is of the same thing now the international society from both the same mistakes as the world governing body said keep using the vaccine so those muslim consensus among the experts we should keep even the back to back saying while they examine the data remember it's very important these events have been reported and the process is the e m a now looks at the data and the sides of the see hear what we suspect now say no this is carry on is just about unfortunate i think the countries decided to deposit

vaccine and the big question is why what was that human thing wasn't it got reaction it's very hard to know you well as president to stand a european medical professionals in specific european countries rather than an official there last concerned about the number of those blood clotting cases speech is indeed low but i think they're mostly concerned about unusual minister stations for example i think there are some issues with cerebral vein numbers sis in germany there are regions also have private i mean you show medical picture is that enough to raise a plaque as far as your concern and that's enough to report it for definite because with any vaccine you have what's called pharmacovigilance which means once the vaccine is being used widely if any doctor see something unusual that of lights are reported to the company that makes the vaccine 1st and 4th and then the e m a or that the countries regulate everybody. and then they people look at this and

look at the evidence you see the issue here is extremely rare so we know the vaccine has been in 20000000 people we know probably 5060 cases of crossing that's a tiny tiny tiny number we know this virus will kill you know a 1000 people in a 1000000 for instance in the forty's and there and in the 40 years age group for example the word to take a sort of a strange view that say a high risk saying you know from getting infected and having severe consequences versus a very low risk of flooding a rise to a parliament i think i think it's partly because it's all around you and the regular people worry you know and governments worry because we get a geisha in the background that's right about my part of itself but a complicated thing. well it's a strange view to take but it's been taken by credit to you governments including the government of ireland and i and couldn't understand why for example the german how whether it is who takes i just never why would your native arlan. close you because i mean geographically demographically economically are much closer so it's

you know the united kingdom and there the british tourists than be imbibing mixi why do you think dublin decided to you know only say that cyril hurley's concerns rather than london's arguments i mean garland pause that i had in germany actually probably you know there were terrible at yeah i guess hard to understand them and i think it's only cautious about you know now there are concerns here at the moment he wants to take a vaccine and have a stroke you know i mean that's obviously it's a bad thing to happen but the science wasn't being followed is the issue here because obviously the numbers with her astra zeneca itself said there are maybe 37 cases that it's 20000000 can you believe it may said there were 50 cases out of 5000000 american so and yet the governments decide to follow each other with an awful sheep mentality perhaps you know and i don't know who wants to be blamed if a while something serious so i mean it's unfortunate i'm hoping within a matter of minutes we have a press release from the young man exactly sorry using the vaccine again and then

this goes away as a problem so what it is it's a strange one to talk about is that. you mentioned that there one of the reasons may be here officials being overly cautious and officials in most countries like to say that it's better to be saved than story and i thing in the past really a situation like this it's a it's very hard to say which is we each i mean normally we would have to wait a couple of years for science to render its verdict but in the absence of that time how would you go about potentially deciding what is again potentially a safe situation or a story situation or that north of the science that's all science is our key informant of. activity here you see a look at those numbers the numbers i gave you are probably correct we're pretty confident about the very low risk of coagulation and plan you say and while very common about the death rate and severe disease rates look at those numbers and then comes your inclusion based on science what else can you base that on i got

a feeling you know an anxiety fear of being sued by someone who gets harmed you can't base this agency else on that you see so it's a strange one we're trying to encourage governments to follow science follow the science and the a.m.a.'s problems and so i don't know if you know and they've said keep using this vaccine when we look at these cases and then when the am i may well say there is a risk you say and then let's see what i say next you know well i suggested be an e-mail address controlling the signs but. if we look at the end of accidents and has it proved several are they haven't proved the the russian or the chinese specs and despite the fact that they scientifically have a pretty strong ethic is it do you think that it's a slow process of certification of the flooring vaccines has anything to do with politics it might mean there's more to approving a box in a published date that they got on visit a factory that makes if they're going to sign off on the production process you know and that would be in china or russia or anywhere maybe they haven't done not

even a doing about how the guy was a machine without one you got to take several boxes remember before a vaccine is approved and includes production but i think as massive pressure from are on the a.m.a.'s or prove those masks because they are very are african and they are in millions of people now and they're showing great safety profiles as well so i suspect they will catch up a pension from those like now as i met him you know alleges do you think based european approach is a good idea how quest i mean could and should one try to use sensually regulate. this vaccination campaign over such a huge territorial rights. such a large population of people with very different demographic you know metabolic economic and other profiles is it such a good idea to do that well that's why the health of the national carrier for the a remember each country has a small national agency for safety for example the m.h.r. in the u.k.

be one example anonymous i call a figure for the national competency health for that very reason because the regional differences use them up brussels then tries to coordinate european activities to the e m a for example and remember all the national an agency's sit in the m a as well you know it's populated by a from trees represented as the mit of the overarching author only but they'll they'll make a recommendation and then the local authorities also agree with it i suppose given the local situation you can see why i mean if astra zeneca is a good example in a sense they've they've ignored the resulting stop in the for whatever the reason is so it's a bit difficult to do with all the port notice because because obviously there are complexities now i'm sure you've heard this is iowa geishas i've seen those articles in the western press that 2nd countries including russia perhaps china trying to here. will use the a vaccine difficult just to perhaps. saw discord among the european countries or

wait staff on the vaccine war or that the diplomacy and tries to take advantage of the of the difficulties that the european continent is experiencing what do you make of that or luckily i mean i mean no let's just say but 25 to go i don't know i mean overall i would say this that these are bright facts names including spoke nick the the chinese i think the radio effective and the mission has to be to get that with many places as possible because the goal here is to save humanity remember on earth we want to vaccinate 7000000000 people now because humans politics will come into it i suppose but it's always regrettable if politics comes into health let's say. well you know so i'm more optimistic and i know for a fact i don't you know the sputnik has been used in 20 countries at the moment i think it is so much of it's been used widely let's hope. ok sorry neal we have to take a very short break right now but it will be back in just a few moments here. americans

love. this was a fundamental part of how our political leadership and our country a large understood the bargain you get a hope and then you know rebel right as the things you don't revolt if you have a stake in the system. be really interesting back and think about the longer deeper history. housings men in the united states not just that question of the american dream but the bigger question of who the dream is for.

welcome back to worlds apart with leukemia a professor of biochemistry at tree college dublin professor neal of before the break me where it's talking about the chair playing. politics and public health and just the other day the u.s. department of health and human services has published its annual report for 2020 which on page 48 it boasts about having used its diplomatic muscle to persuade brazil to reject the russian call that 1000 back to the beach it describes as cold malign influence detrimental to u.s.

safety and security now i know i am getting you into political commentary fair but since you've been such an avid cat outside of vaccinating the world deep think that the goal of providing a vaccine c.e.o. all countries around the world is achievable 'd if one country describes the vaccine to prove that it acts in a without the country as as i'm alive influence and a threat to its own security doesn't help but let's not focus where you want to look at the data in other words they have a small it might be date has been published we've seen the africa c we've seen you know good data from that vaccine we've some some data from the chinese vaccine like any other vaccine if the data holds up you can't call them a line you know what's the basis for that's they would you give me the scientific i would say to those people you need a scientific basis or to say you know well it's not scientific they think this is a say that it takes away or chips away from the u.s. humanitarian leadership around the world you know in other countries supplying

exactly and 0 a 3rd country if there is didn't if there's a violation well i yeah i don't i and as i say i think the most important thing of all is this it's it's about scenes are. are given the thumbs up from a scientific or medical point of view we shouldn't be interfering with the process if it's all possible and remember the reason why it's a global problem is very simple these new variants will crop up in places where the vaccine you want to riot and they will come in infect you you know your country or whoever back on to get you know there's a massive need to vaccinate as many countries as quickly as they say your own as well you see so so nationalism and help in this global and then it will it there's always a risk of a virus coming by on a different and hence the i'm a huge fan of kodak's our organization because they're in a fantastic job getting the vaccine into conference where it's most needed you know and that's held up if there's reasons to stop it that will come back and bite you later you know so you politicians need a long term vision as well as the short term now professor neal in this argument that he just laid out has been around for pretty much every whole year at that you

know countries shit well the basque country should be how being their neighbors to get access to vaccine because be all in this together but that i think we have seen that a lot of instances of pretty sour behavior on the part of the ballot nations just theoretically thinking about perhaps didn't ask them how do you think those things should be organized you said if you are being callbacks mechanist but they are not there working as intended yet and that's a very challenging for them remember you know in the are doing their best and their money serai is a huge amount of money so all the cult many counties in europe donated funds of vaccine manufacturers jane j. asses and they are given them back seen you know so it is a process might mean we never got rid of malaria did we you know we never really got rid of a child be or t.v. in africa these are devastating diseases so it's not it's going to change overnight

my hope is that 19 will actually make these all is aces more tractable now you know as well as we move forward through the success of october 1000 in many ways. it's a hard life of many issues i know you know and then you'd like you'd like to see more coordination there with the u.n. or i'm not going to so far my favorite by a long way but i'd like to see more effort there to coordinate the efforts and all the behind this all. now apart from your political rivalries to combat my husband i may have been times that 5 domestic debate. about our own responsibilities towards out own house and the house of others how much we are responsible for you know our house outcomes whether that boundary allies how comfortable are you with this mean emerging afaik set on that mass back in then everything out run again i mean this debate goes back and forth a huge amount we saw it in in the u.s. you know where were democrats while mosques and republicans did and this is not an

issue to do with politics this is simply a human health issue so and then obviously people feel their civil liberties are being challenged by being told to wear a mosque i mean you've got to be careful with making things that i'm you know illegal but i'm always the you've got to try to bring people along with you know by laying out the evidence you know and then hopefully convince them that this is a sensible thing to do you have to do much more than that if you get very draconian that can backfire on you because it's a complicated thing this topic is going to humans to behave in a certain way you go along with things and if you're reasonable you would say the date is ready for the last reading i will read them all so we can hope for well you know what got me the most about this whole controversy is the average expanding notion of moral hazard by and how few people or a 6 emetic carriers viewed as that rather just people with preexisting oh i would rather say scree wired condition. i don't have a problem with wearing

a mask it's not the big deal but what about vaccination would you go as far as making them mandatory no i'd never do that because that all in fact are as. starkly you see some of your personal choice thing all you can do is appeal to people better nature and say look you may not be at risk from this disease because you're not a high risk group but if you take the vaccine it will help with a limb and i think this farce from our country's and the economy now comes back to everybody's benefits in other words you're trying to appeal to people's sense of right and wrong in that sense and hope for the best but no to make to make vaccines mandatory is it kind of is a lot of human rights a woman you know another said you see but. we know now for a fact that life style especially resulting in insulin resistance and tonic inflammation. i say is a major factor in 2000 call that 19 complications which make treatment longer so much more expensive and i wonder if.

if you would support any and i don't know many data guidance on how people should leave their lives you know it's you minimize our mutual inconveniences and cost and by god i mean what people should eat how they should actually size how they should care for their bodies so that when the next time they run into a major pandemic it doesn't he has as hard as they spike it as well no again you just provide advice as best you can i mean if we were to follow that line array's knew we ban alcohol we ban smoking we ban everything to protect people as well you know you end up in a very difficult place then i think about human nature to be honest now here was very even how they respond to things you see so now if you're a doctor who ever comes into your going you treat them you don't say i won't treat you because you didn't follow the guidelines on the low fat diet for example that pop up adult mets and it's all it's just to treat people especially comment made

them many other stop or ways of doing that i think that's how it stacks rise or snaps you know use of something that will encourage people to you know be more disciplined about what they have i mean it actually leads me to that russian that occurred to me when i was reading your book human knowledge in which you. are right that the need comes from the law to worry immunise which means exemption am i sort of wondering if this belief in the absence of belief in nablus and as something that would save you oh actually you know exam some people from being more disciplined and the more for tactical last wasteful with our own town. back can be true yeah exactly so people take more risks i suppose they want to do it in our lives on its own you know but back back it's a bit difficult as well i mean ultimately all you can do with these kinds of things is laid out the evidence as i say for people and so if you take exercise choice that week you will decrease your risk of getting counts or now i wish we all could

do that you know if you've got to cut is that when you know what to and then as you say the other side is you have to put a use tax on cigarettes for example because you can't stop people smoking maybe they're more worried about their bank account than their health for example has ways to do these things without making it legal or forcing be the. how comfortable have you been where the. rapists are collect your damage stat. down measures after games because the government's advice did is they remain staying inside. that has its own consequences for people is how i mean if you stay inside your most immobile you're trying to eat more you types you watch towie more you tend to last do you think that at the end of the day dad why such a good a.t.m. a lockdown is a hopeless solution remember it's the worst case scenario front because it's so difficult for people on the things you mention mental health issues all the rest of

it but the fact is this was an emergency and the only way to contain it was through lock down the main reason being people spread out symptoms you know like with sars and mers that was easier because you'd symptoms and you spread it so you could get people with sars put them into hospital and isolate them with this one he will walk around for 3 or 4 days with no symptoms and infect someone a man and then the vulnerable person is that much so anyway with the do a lot you know you've got to remember though every decision if you got them out there has a consequence and then go home with the ballance that happens with a figure out a way to minimise the harmful effect of law you know as well as promoting health restart of the virus from spreading but it's a really difficult question that's why again science is the only way out of this because then eventually we can open up again because a vaccination you see and that's where the vaccination campaign becomes so important that that means you get a much better solution and locking people down you know with this is always in our minds the risk of any anything like a lock now would have on our population must be secondary and. the rational of the

low down it was premised bad transmissions. occur very easily that it's a highly contagious virus but i think it's a little bit more complicated than that i know a couple of families and which one family member died of carbon while be out there it's not. the members leave the same house or didn't get in fact they despise having a close contact with that individual so it seems to me that means that the mission is far from being mean here do we understand at this point that based on the transmission how the fire is gas and one person body and why doesn't the bag out there at the same time the so many variables as we call them in immunology remember everybody's immune system is there from let's start with us just like your face is different to mine even though about almost sapience miamians system is very different to yours you know so so if i make a very both exposed to the virus just through don't look at my immune system and

find a part of the new and how you get a disease you know that's about one variable the 2nd is a dose of virus i might be a lucky and otherwise i might be exposed friday afternoon to a massive dose of virus you're not in the house that day so you don't get exposed to the same dose you see but i think dose is very important certainly even outside genetics if you did get a good night's sleep the night before and i didn't see your immune system i'd be slightly better than mine and maybe i thought a moment then you fight the infection to the sollie variables and very hard to pin it down we do know awful lot about the immune system i don't know how reacts a lot about the virus so we can come up with the sounds of a hypothetical reason most likely see this variation. well clearly there are differences among the countries but what i'm hearing from the russian doctors is that while during this very wave of the pandemic most of the casualties for the out really. now they're dealing mostly with middle aged man who'll tonfa survive their desires but require a lot more support

a lot more and medical assistance do we have is it the case that. there was and do we understand why men tend to be more vulnerable than women to be there with a good idea for the male female there phones for definite film work that affair that it was known before men and women respond if we have to try to save our lives for example men do worse with hepatitis c. so coming down the main i mean system is different to the females in various ways the big question is why a surgeon is a big factor that hormone actually benefits the immune system and women those women haven't men don't that's one reason and then we know that because when women go through the menopause their risk becomes like man you know because he she can fall that's one reason about explanation the 2nd thing we know is the x. chromosome women have 2 copies mentally or long some immune genes are wrong that i found a double dose of the immune genes you know got double the number of troops to fight the virus that's the 2nd reason because women pay the price for this by having more

autonomy into this so well my own thing as well but immune systems are slightly more active and even that might defend them against a virus like oh but one thing that might make them a higher risk of lupus are arthritis it's more common in women so we don't care a bit about out there now why was the virus affecting younger people more and more we don't you know what actually are these are these variants is that a change in the volume and it's better able to affect so people in their forty's as opposed to the older people that's a bit of a mystery although it is they could also be maybe those people are taking more chances and getting a higher exposure you know probably behavioral as well so this is if you're not all that we know older people who wrote the. bobbito that's what i'm most of now as you know they're like other parts of our bodies your immune system gets less affected and the virus is not able to get a 4 homo and spread more you know and in fact the inflammatory process is stronger in the older people than younger people there are losing controls on that as well and now you get the disease that absolutely what it really quite understanding

about it's linked into age. now professor i know that you've been fascinated besides a human body your career break in a couple of books on ash has this virus changed anything fundamentally and in a way you think about. the way human body is constructed by which and i won't say this virus the fact that you've got this strange hybrid of 2 traits in this virus one is they can live in your nose and have no symptoms and your property you know the or it goes into your lungs and makes a really sick but it's a simple as that many minds but tells us something about human biology that we don't fully understand you know why would that be is it because the immune system never gets to your nose is a because the virus like your lungs much more are somewhat the reason so so we're kind of learning what we're learning more and more about is how viruses interact with anyone and this virus is revealing new aspects of the whole thing which was that in the middle of trying to understand some of my reasons are all with

a fascination because they're the most little scraps of or and now you know so many more heart of our biology in immunology from this r's. well i hope you will. consider some of those issues to be in your new book going to graduation some degree response and thank you very much for spending some time of this great. morning up on the radio. or watching hope to see you again next week. one of the worst mass shootings in america was in less vigorous in 2017 the tragedy

exposed a little of the real last big women who say elected officials are controlled by can see you know not. reveal what. really and now it's part of the. best of the american public barely remembers that it happens just shows you the power of money and. the powerful showed that true colors when the pandemic hit the most contagious contagion that we've seen in decades and then you have a mayor who doesn't care so here's carol i goodman offering the lives of the vegas residents to the control group. of deep indifference to the people who have been saved if they were to take an action absolutely. machines doing in a money machine is a huge cash register that is ran by people who don't care about people's lives being lost.

hungary's foreign minister becomes the 1st senior official from an e.u. country to receive. the vaccine along with. maxine is. saving lives. among the stories that shape this week. given the ok from the european medicines agency after a few years. of u.k. doctors say some patients are counseling appointments with the. u.s. department of health to pressuring brazil to use the. days before the highly infectious brazilian.