The following is a transcript of an interview with former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb that aired on February 14, 2021, on “Face the Nation”.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We now turn to former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He serves on the board of Pfizer, as well as Illumina, and came from Westport, Connecticut. Good morning to you.
DOCTOR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you agree with – the CEO of Rite Aid there that the private sector should have a more direct role in more of this process. Do you see the Biden government getting there?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think they are doing it now, the Biden government. I think they are taking an approach to all of the above in terms of trying to push that out and create more access sites. You know, the only recommendation I would make is that I do not … I would not devote so many federal resources to developing these mass vaccination sites. I think people who can go online, register, drive to Dodger Stadium, wait in line, take half a day off work to get vaccinated, are people who could be served by Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid. federal resources and state resources and would create more personalized solutions that can be used in some of the hard to reach environments, some of the needy communities if you can move mobile vans to those communities, try to work with community groups, local providers, religious groups, centers community health services to try to vaccinate the most difficult populations to reach. It is a very difficult effort. Is expensive. It is a personalized effort. It is a practical effort. I would be mobilizing federal resources for this type of mission and letting Walmart work with easy demand and Rite Aid.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Biden administration bought another 200 million doses. This gives them a stock of around 600, eventually, when it leaves the production line. You heard me speak to the director of the CDC and asked her when production should switch to handling new variants. She said this is happening now. What can you tell us about our position in terms of being ready to protect ourselves against these new variants?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, look, I think we have a lot of time to settle this for the fall and have vaccine boosters that could cover these new variants. Development work is going on now. Therefore, all companies are developing new variant vaccines, including Pfizer, the company I belong to. The question is, when do you start to change your manufacturing? And I think you will probably need to make that decision sometime in July, August, at the latest. And you may not change your entire fabrication. You can change part of your manufacturing to these new variant vaccines, because remember, they still haven’t fully completed clinical trials. So you don’t want to throw all your eggs in that basket, but you do want to create a supply to have on hand in the fall, if you need those vaccines. I think this is where you will make that decision. The time to start manufacturing the manufacturing process and actually getting the finished vaccine off the line is about two months. Therefore, if you start manufacturing in July, you will start to withdraw the vaccine in time for the fall.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You heard the British Prime Minister defend his decision to continue vaccinating his population with the AstraZeneca vaccine, although it was not as effective in the first tests against the South African variant. WHO is also persevering. Is that a mistake?
DR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Well, I think if we’re going to do this, we need a plan B. I understand why they want to do this. They made a lot of this vaccine. It’s cheap. It is accessible. It could be placed in low and middle income countries due to handling requirements. It does not require complicated cold chain storage. But if you are putting a vaccine in these markets that we know do not cover B.1.351, the South African variant, very well, if at all. You run the risk of being able to select this variant in those markets. Therefore, you need a plan B on which vaccine to implant in these regions, if in fact B.1.351 becomes prevalent in these regions after vaccinating with the AstraZeneca vaccine. And the problem is that you can exclude the vaccine that is the most likely candidate in these markets, which is the J&J vaccine, because it has very similar storage requirements. You would like to use this vaccine. But in fact, the AstraZeneca vaccine is very immunogenic against the vaccine vector. So, what they are using to deliver the COVID gene sequence is a chimpanzee adenovirus. And it turned out that that adenovirus they are using is very immunogenic. It creates antibodies that can attack other adenoviruses, including perhaps, and we don’t know for sure, but perhaps the J&J vaccine. Therefore, you can exclude the opportunity to use this vaccine in these markets, which means that you need another plan B, which may be the mRNA vaccines, such as the vaccine that Pfizer produces, the company I belong to. But these vaccines are more difficult to handle in these markets because they require more complicated storage in the cold chain. Therefore, we need to resolve this now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is a great warning that you are giving now. I- I–
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think they – I think they need to have a plan for that, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I would also like to ask you about these comments. They were very smart, I thought, from – from the Biden government’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. He said yesterday that the Biden administration is deeply concerned about the World Health Organization’s investigation, Chinese interference in it. He demanded data delivery. This is exactly what the Trump administration demanded as well. What does China still have here that we need to know?
DR. GOTTLIEB: A lot of data. Well, first of all, they have antibody tests on the people who worked at that Wuhan laboratory. They did not make this available. Then you would like to know if they have antibodies to the coronavirus. This would be an indication that they may have been infected. These antibodies will now decrease over time. But you want to at least look at that data. We want to see sequencing data from samples retained from people who were admitted to the hospital in October and November with viral syndromes that looked like COVID to see if this infection was spreading earlier and try to get closer to the source of the initial outbreak. This data is certainly available, the Chinese have it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DR. GOTTLIEB: So, there is a lot of data that has not been made available.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Gottlieb, thank you, as always, for your time. We’ll be back in a moment.