Below is a transcript of an interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, which aired on February 14, 2021 on “Face the Nation”.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Now let’s move on to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He serves on the board of Pfizer and also on Illumina, and accompanies us from Westport, Connecticut. Good morning to you.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you agree with the CEO of Rite Aid that the private sector should play a more direct role in more of this process. Do you see that the Biden administration will finally arrive?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think they’re doing it right now, the Biden administration. I think they are taking a full approach to all of the above in terms of trying to eliminate this and create more access sites. You know, the only recommendation I would make is that no, I wouldn’t devote so many federal resources to the development of these mass vaccination sites. I think people who can connect online, register, drive to Dodger Stadium, wait in line, take half a day off work to get vaccinated, are people who could get services from Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid. It would take federal and state resources and create more tailor-made solutions that could be used in some hard-to-reach environments, in some of the underserved communities, whether you can move mobile vans to those communities or try to work. community groups, local providers, church groups, community health centers to try to vaccinate the hardest to reach populations. This is a very difficult endeavor. It’s expensive. It is a tailor-made effort. It is a practical effort. It would be directing federal resources toward this type of mission and letting Walmart work with Easy Demand and Rite Aid.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Biden administration bought 200 million more doses. This gives them an approximate reserve of 600, once it leaves the production line. You heard me talk to the CDC director and asked him when production should move on to new variant treatments. He said this is happening now. What can you tell us about our point of view to be on the verge of protecting us against these new variants?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, look, I think we have a lot of time to do well for the fall and have vaccine reinforcements that can cover these new variants. Development work is underway right now. Therefore, all companies are developing new vaccine variants, including Pfizer, the company of which I am a board member. The question is: when do you start changing your manufacturing? And I think you’ll probably have to make that decision sometime in July, at the latest in August. And you may not change your entire manufacture. You can switch part of your manufacture to these new vaccine variants, because remember that they will not yet be completely gone through clinical trials. So you don’t want to throw all the eggs in the basket, but you do want to create a supply that will allow you to arrive in the fall if you need these vaccines. So I think that’s the point where you’re going to make that decision. The time to start manufacturing the manufacturing process and finish the finished vaccine is about two months. Therefore, if you start manufacturing in July, you will start removing the vaccine in time for the fall.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You heard the British Prime Minister resolve his decision to continue vaccinating his population with the AstraZeneca vaccine, although it has been shown to be not as effective in the first trials against the South African variant. The WHO also stays there. Is it a mistake?
DR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Well, I think if we do, we need a plan B. I understand why they want to do that. They have made a lot of this vaccine. It’s cheap. It is accessible. It could be placed in low- and middle-income countries due to manipulation requirements. It does not require complicated cold chain storage. But if you introduce a vaccine in those markets that we know does not cover B.1.351, the South African variant, fine, if at all. You run the risk of selecting this variant in these markets. Therefore, you need a plan B on which vaccine you will implement in these regions if, in fact, B.1.351 becomes prevalent in these regions after you are vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. And the problem is that you can exclude the only vaccine that is the most likely candidate in these markets, which is the J&J vaccine because it has very similar storage requirements. You want to use this vaccine. But, in fact, the AstraZeneca vaccine is very immunogenic against the vaccine vector. Therefore, what they use to administer the COVID gene sequence is a chimpanzee adenovirus. And it turns out that the adenovirus they use is very immunogenic. It creates antibodies that can attack other adenoviruses, including perhaps, and we don’t know for sure, but maybe the J&J vaccine. Therefore, you could rule out the opportunity to use this vaccine in these markets, which means you need another plan B, which could be the mRNA vaccine, like the vaccine produced by Pfizer, of which I am a member. . But these vaccines are more difficult to handle in these markets because they require more complicated cold chain storage. So we have to fix it right now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a pretty big warning you’re making right now. Jo- jo–
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think … I think they should have a plan for that, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I also want to ask you about these comments. They thought they were pretty sharp from Biden administration national security adviser Jake Sullivan. He said yesterday that the Biden administration has a deep concern for the World Health Organization’s investigation into Chinese interference in it. He demanded the delivery of data. This is exactly what the Trump administration demanded. What do we still need to know in China?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Lots of data. Well, first of all, they have antibody tests against the people who worked in this lab in Wuhan. They did not make it available. Therefore, you would like to know if they have antibodies against coronavirus. This would be an indication that they may have become infected. Now, these antibodies will diminish over time. But at least you want to look at that data. We want to see sequencing data from retained samples from people hospitalized in October and November with viral syndromes that looked like COVID to see if this infection spread earlier and try to get closer to the source of the initial outbreak. Certainly, this data is available, the Chinese have it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DR. GOTTLIEB: So there’s a lot of data that wasn’t made available.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Gottlieb, thank you, as always, for your time. We will be back in a moment.