0:00:12.852 but Everything Science Sponsored 0:00:12.852 –> 0:00:14.88 by the Yale School of Medicine

0:00:08.8 –> 0:00:11.496 Hello and welcome to Science et al podcast, 0:00:11.5 –> 0:00:12.852 but everything science sponsored 0:00:12.852 –> 0:00:14.88 by the Yale School of Medicine. 0:00:14.88 –> 0:00:16.57 I’m your host, Daniel Barron. 0:00:16.57 –> 0:00:18.64 And in this episode I’m 0:00:18.64 –> 0:00:20.296 speaking with Robert Bazell. 0:00:20.3 –> 0:00:23.6 Robert or Bob as he asked me to call him, 0:00:23.6 –> 0:00:25.25 worked his NBC’s chief science 0:00:25.25 –> 0:00:26.57 correspondent for 38 years. 0:00:26.57 –> 0:00:28.88 In that capacity, Bob and many awards, 0:00:28.88 –> 0:00:30.2 including five Emmy Awards, 0:00:30.2 –> 0:00:32.53 the Peabody Award, and the DuPont Award. 0:00:32.53 –> 0:00:34.205 He also authored a bestselling 0:00:34.205 –> 0:00:35.48 book called her two, 0:00:35.48 –> 0:00:37.13 The Making of a revolutionary 0:00:37.13 –> 0:00:38.45 treatment for breast Cancer, 0:00:38.45 –> 0:00:41.719 which was adapted as a TV film. 0:00:41.72 –> 0:00:44.138 Now Bob is supposedly formally retired, 0:00:44.14 –> 0:00:46.258 even though he’s quite busy at 0:00:46.258 –> 0:00:47.67 yells Department of Molecular 0:00:47.736 –> 0:00:49.8 Cellular and Developmental Biology, 0:00:49.8 –> 0:00:52.225 where he spends his time mentoring 0:00:52.225 –> 0:00:53.482 aspiring journalist scientists. 0:00:53.482 –> 0:00:56.038 An anyone who wants to communicate 0:00:56.038 –> 0:00:57.878 more effectively with the public, 0:00:57.88 –> 0:00:58.696 including myself. 0:00:58.696 –> 0:01:00.736 I ran into Bob’s Science 0:01:00.736 –> 0:01:02.36 journalism panel at Yale, 0:01:02.36 –> 0:01:05.064 where he was one of the primary panelists. 0:01:05.07 –> 0:01:07.443 I had never met him in person 0:01:07.443 –> 0:01:08.8 and didn’t recognize him,

1 0:01:08.8 –> 0:01:11.12 but instantly recognized his voice. 0:01:11.12 –> 0:01:12.94 And after the panel discussion, 0:01:12.94 –> 0:01:14.75 I Googled Bob and reviewed 0:01:14.75 –> 0:01:16.198 some of his videos, 0:01:16.2 –> 0:01:18.015 some of which I still 0:01:18.015 –> 0:01:19.467 remembered from decades before. 0:01:19.47 –> 0:01:21.966 It was kind of strange to see him 0:01:21.966 –> 0:01:24.513 with Bill Clinton and a lot of 0:01:24.513 –> 0:01:26.363 the AIDS and cancer treatments 0:01:26.436 –> 0:01:28.536 and the Human Genome Project. 0:01:28.54 –> 0:01:30.718 It was really, it was really. 0:01:30.72 –> 0:01:32.172 It was really fascinating. 0:01:32.172 –> 0:01:33.987 Bob’s had an enormous impact, 0:01:33.99 –> 0:01:36.854 only that I and I suppose many of 0:01:36.854 –> 0:01:39.768 listeners think about and appreciate science. 0:01:39.77 –> 0:01:42.632 It was a real honor to speak with Bob 0:01:42.632 –> 0:01:45.765 about his work and to see from his eyes at, 0:01:45.77 –> 0:01:46.342 you know, 0:01:46.342 –> 0:01:48.344 the 10,000 foot view how he views 0:01:48.344 –> 0:01:50.063 science and how science meshes 0:01:50.063 –> 0:01:51.778 with politics and public policy, 0:01:51.78 –> 0:01:53.99 social movements and with the 0:01:53.99 –> 0:01:55.316 scientiﬁc community itself. 0:01:55.32 –> 0:01:56.284 So here we go. 0:01:56.284 –> 0:01:57.007 Thanks again to 0:02:06.64 –> 0:02:09.363 Well, thank you for coming and for 0:02:09.363 –> 0:02:12.25 letting me pick your brain yet again. 0:02:12.25 –> 0:02:14.661 It was really interesting so I 0:02:14.661 –> 0:02:17.067 had not really met you formally, 0:02:17.07 –> 0:02:19.758 but I ﬁrst I could say heard your 0:02:19.758 –> 0:02:22.45 voice from the back of a lecture

2 0:02:22.45 –> 0:02:24.996 Hall during a panel discussion with 0:02:24.996 –> 0:02:27.088 Carl Zimmer Anneliese Sanders, 0:02:27.09 –> 0:02:29.53 an I recognized your voice. 0:02:29.53 –> 0:02:30.898 Really quite quickly actually. 0:02:30.898 –> 0:02:33.032 So I was like, oh, wow, 0:02:33.032 –> 0:02:36.972 I know this guy and so after that I just 0:02:36.972 –> 0:02:40.164 I did what I think by your deﬁnition 0:02:40.26 –> 0:02:43.617 would be a not quite a deep dive but. 0:02:43.62 –> 0:02:45.948 Dipping my toe in the ﬁnger 0:02:45.948 –> 0:02:48.259 of your huge body of work. 0:02:48.26 –> 0:02:50.59 And obviously you’ve reported on 0:02:50.59 –> 0:02:53.629 far more than 4000 stories and I 0:02:53.629 –> 0:02:56.149 was able to go on to NBC’s website 0:02:56.237 –> 0:02:58.778 and watch some of the videos that 0:02:58.778 –> 0:03:01.418 you had made like some of the 0:03:01.418 –> 0:03:03.74 reporting you did for the TV. 0:03:03.74 –> 0:03:04.13 By 0:03:04.13 –> 0:03:07.226 the way, if you want to see videos 0:03:07.226 –> 0:03:10.332 from history, you can open the 0:03:10.332 –> 0:03:12.664 Yale Library and Vanderbilt. 0:03:12.67 –> 0:03:14.91 Library has an archive of every television 0:03:14.91 –> 0:03:17.008 show that’s been produced since 1968, 0:03:17.01 –> 0:03:20.348 and you go live stream it. I had no idea, 0:03:20.348 –> 0:03:22.358 so you can watch just everything. 0:03:22.36 –> 0:03:23.688 You can watch everything. 0:03:23.69 –> 0:03:25.695 Well, let’s pick a moment in 0:03:25.695 –> 0:03:27.363 history that’s kind of scary. 0:03:27.363 –> 0:03:28.029 Actually, there’s 0:03:28.03 –> 0:03:30.71 a lot of junk on television. There’s a 0:03:30.71 –> 0:03:33.707 lot of junk, but it also is for me. 0:03:33.71 –> 0:03:35.375 It’s been a very useful

3 0:03:35.375 –> 0:03:36.374 tool for undergraduates, 0:03:36.38 –> 0:03:38.718 because if I’m teaching a course on, 0:03:38.72 –> 0:03:40.73 say, the history of HIV AIDS, 0:03:40.73 –> 0:03:42.56 which I’m doing now, or. 0:03:42.56 –> 0:03:45.593 Events in public health that I take it back, 0:03:45.6 –> 0:03:48.547 take them back and show them these. 0:03:48.55 –> 0:03:50.934 Videos ’cause I wouldn’t have access to them. 0:03:50.94 –> 0:03:53.324 NBC owns them, but I can show it, 0:03:53.33 –> 0:03:56.066 show it to them and they are absolutely 0:03:56.066 –> 0:03:58.426 fascinated to hear the inside story of. 0:03:58.43 –> 0:04:00.495 How this happened and then to see 0:04:00.495 –> 0:04:02.344 the people that they’re not just 0:04:02.344 –> 0:04:04.451 reading about it in an article or 0:04:04.513 –> 0:04:06.494 at a Journal article or a popular 0:04:06.5 –> 0:04:08.3 article, many of whom you interviewed? 0:04:08.3 –> 0:04:10.39 Yeah, why didn’t they see me interviewing 0:04:10.39 –> 0:04:12.478 them and then I can tell them 0:04:12.48 –> 0:04:13.676 what they’re really like. 0:04:13.676 –> 0:04:15.47 This person was a decent person. 0:04:15.47 –> 0:04:17.87 This one is not one of the videos, 0:04:17.87 –> 0:04:20.552 so there are 480 videos on the NBC website, 0:04:20.56 –> 0:04:22.95 so this is 10 to what I did. 0:04:22.95 –> 0:04:24.294 Sure right, but you know, 0:04:24.294 –> 0:04:26.03 it’s still a lot for me and 0:04:26.093 –> 0:04:28.028 there’s one video in particular. 0:04:28.03 –> 0:04:29.398 It was from 1981. 0:04:29.398 –> 0:04:31.899 Where you had this excellent white linen 0:04:31.899 –> 0:04:34.545 sports coat and purple tie purple shirt, 0:04:34.55 –> 0:04:36.43 your hairs gotta fro delivery. 0:04:36.43 –> 0:04:39.32 Bring all that up. 0:04:39.32 –> 0:04:41.384 Great, so great and you’re interviewing

4 0:04:41.384 –> 0:04:43.209 BF Skinner about some experiments 0:04:43.209 –> 0:04:45.139 that he’s doing with pigeons. 0:04:45.14 –> 0:04:46.96 You know unpacking and, well, 0:04:46.96 –> 0:04:49.508 you know the different files and stuff. 0:04:49.51 –> 0:04:53.343 I had a great honor and for a long time on 0:04:53.343 –> 0:04:57.16 the Today Show in the 80s where I they won’t, 0:04:57.16 –> 0:04:59.687 they took a science segment which is 0:04:59.687 –> 0:05:02.883 very rare an I was allowed to pick and 0:05:02.883 –> 0:05:05.824 anything I wanted to and I found out 0:05:05.824 –> 0:05:08.443 that Skinner was still around, which was 0:05:08.443 –> 0:05:10.906 surprising because it was so famous. 0:05:10.906 –> 0:05:13.51 And he was a great interview. 0:05:13.51 –> 0:05:15.526 It was a very wry sense of 0:05:15.526 –> 0:05:17.62 humor and the funny character. 0:05:17.62 –> 0:05:20.014 And he had this idea of everything. 0:05:20.014 –> 0:05:21.699 Everything as I recently started 0:05:21.699 –> 0:05:23.11 wearing hearing aids myself. 0:05:23.11 –> 0:05:24.514 But in those days, 0:05:24.514 –> 0:05:26.89 hearing aids were quite visible and he, 0:05:26.89 –> 0:05:28.936 being the behaviorist that he was, 0:05:28.94 –> 0:05:31.348 he told me that the effect of 0:05:31.348 –> 0:05:33.788 hearing aid seems to be it made 0:05:33.788 –> 0:05:35.453 people scream at him ’cause 0:05:35.46 –> 0:05:37.18 they would see it here. 0:05:39.32 –> 0:05:39.968 Operant conditioning. 0:05:39.968 –> 0:05:41.912 He didn’t think the hearing aids 0:05:41.912 –> 0:05:43.169 were enhancing his hearing, 0:05:43.17 –> 0:05:45.42 but he may make people screw you. 0:05:45.42 –> 0:05:47.025 Wow that would have been 0:05:47.025 –> 0:05:48.309 such a wonderful experience. 0:05:48.31 –> 0:05:49.91 I’ve obviously never met Skinner,

5 0:05:49.91 –> 0:05:52.22 but I’ve read a lot of his 0:05:52.22 –> 0:05:53.769 work and seeing how it 0:05:53.77 –> 0:05:55.61 inﬂuences and he had some 0:05:55.61 –> 0:05:57.852 students that I followed up with 0:05:57.852 –> 0:05:59.838 who made enormous fan of all. 0:05:59.84 –> 0:06:01.59 Of other people, for instance, 0:06:01.59 –> 0:06:03.34 people were trying to teach 0:06:03.34 –> 0:06:04.74 a language to chimpanzees, 0:06:04.74 –> 0:06:06.66 and they proved that they could 0:06:06.66 –> 0:06:08.775 get pigeons to do exactly what 0:06:08.775 –> 0:06:10.69 these people are getting the 0:06:10.69 –> 0:06:11.74 chimpanzees to do. 0:06:11.74 –> 0:06:12.79 Pressing the buttons, 0:06:12.79 –> 0:06:13.49 community communicating 0:06:13.49 –> 0:06:14.89 right exactly spelling out 0:06:14.89 –> 0:06:16.99 words which really weren’t really doing 0:06:16.99 –> 0:06:19.91 well. There was such as a light going 0:06:19.91 –> 0:06:22.828 through a lot of your work and I wanted 0:06:22.828 –> 0:06:24.886 to kind of start farther back because 0:06:24.886 –> 0:06:27.137 I ﬁnd it absolutely fascinating. 0:06:27.14 –> 0:06:28.92 So you did your undergraduate 0:06:28.92 –> 0:06:29.988 work and Berkeley. 0:06:29.99 –> 0:06:35.966 Seemingly at a time when there was like huge. 0:06:35.97 –> 0:06:36.963 Protest political unrest. 0:06:36.963 –> 0:06:39.732 You know the 60 seven was it when 0:06:39.732 –> 0:06:41.548 you graduated, graduated in 67. 0:06:41.55 –> 0:06:44.349 I started in the fall of 60 three and 0:06:44.349 –> 0:06:47.439 the free Speech movement was in 64 and 0:06:47.439 –> 0:06:50.68 Berkeley was way ahead of the rest of the 0:06:50.68 –> 0:06:52.694 country in terms of being disruptive. 0:06:52.694 –> 0:06:55.86 And I had my eye on my own back.

6 0:06:55.86 –> 0:06:58.348 Story to that is that I had dropped 0:06:58.348 –> 0:07:00.819 out of high school an I worked 0:07:00.819 –> 0:07:03.19 as a merchant Seaman for awhile. 0:07:03.19 –> 0:07:05.39 I’m traveling around the Paciﬁc 0:07:05.39 –> 0:07:08.37 so I got that. I got to Berkeley. 0:07:08.37 –> 0:07:10.574 I got the equivalent of GD and 0:07:10.574 –> 0:07:11.77 I went to Berkeley 0:07:11.77 –> 0:07:13.926 and I’m sorry can we step back? 0:07:13.93 –> 0:07:15.47 Can you help me understand 0:07:15.47 –> 0:07:17.01 what a merchant Seaman is? 0:07:17.01 –> 0:07:19.089 Oh I have this vision of EB 0:07:19.089 –> 0:07:20.674 White working on a cruise 0:07:20.674 –> 0:07:22.546 vessel going up to Alaska or 0:07:22.55 –> 0:07:24.09 something was not that diﬀerent. 0:07:24.09 –> 0:07:26.514 I was in a cooks and stewards union 0:07:26.514 –> 0:07:28.674 so that I wash dishes at sometimes 0:07:28.674 –> 0:07:31.156 if I got a good job you would 0:07:31.156 –> 0:07:33.326 bid on jobs at the Union Hall. 0:07:33.33 –> 0:07:36.362 If I got a good job I would 0:07:36.362 –> 0:07:39.508 be able to wait on tables or. 0:07:39.51 –> 0:07:42.03 Sometimes I had to clean up rooms, 0:07:42.03 –> 0:07:44.172 it was it was interesting mixture 0:07:44.172 –> 0:07:46.382 of things and sometimes it worked 0:07:46.382 –> 0:07:48.167 on freighters which were much 0:07:48.167 –> 0:07:50.308 more less contact with the public. 0:07:50.31 –> 0:07:52.599 But this was long enough ago that 0:07:52.599 –> 0:07:54.629 there were American passenger ships, 0:07:54.63 –> 0:07:56.82 so people were traveling to Hawaii 0:07:56.82 –> 0:07:59.366 and Australia and Tahiti on ships was 0:07:59.366 –> 0:08:03.9 quite an experience, so I was a bit. 0:08:03.9 –> 0:08:07.347 In front of my classmates when I got there.

7 0:08:07.35 –> 0:08:09.948 In terms of life experience and 0:08:09.948 –> 0:08:12.79 so that made me right away. 0:08:12.79 –> 0:08:14.776 Wine, wonder why these people are 0:08:14.776 –> 0:08:16.1 wasting their time protesting? 0:08:16.1 –> 0:08:18.417 Not that I disagree with the politics, 0:08:18.42 –> 0:08:20.485 but in retrospect a lot of them 0:08:20.485 –> 0:08:22.924 are very brave people who had gone 0:08:22.924 –> 0:08:24.784 to the Mississippi freedom Summers 0:08:24.784 –> 0:08:27.017 and put their lives on the line. 0:08:27.02 –> 0:08:29.476 And but when they came back they wanted 0:08:29.476 –> 0:08:31.989 to pick a ﬁght with the University, 0:08:31.99 –> 0:08:32.944 and in retrospect, 0:08:32.944 –> 0:08:36.272 a lot of it was kind of silly at the 0:08:36.272 –> 0:08:38.659 time was whether you put a table 0:08:38.736 –> 0:08:40.962 here or 30 feet away from there 0:08:40.962 –> 0:08:42.922 an to give out pamphlets so. 0:08:42.922 –> 0:08:45.709 I had trouble at ﬁrst getting used to it, 0:08:45.71 –> 0:08:48.55 and I think that the politics of Berkeley. 0:08:48.55 –> 0:08:51.406 Played a lot in my ending up 0:08:51.406 –> 0:08:53.42 being a journalist because. 0:08:53.42 –> 0:08:56.438 It was always very disruptive Ann. 0:08:56.44 –> 0:08:59.79 It was hard to concentrate, I didn’t. 0:08:59.79 –> 0:09:03.865 I had was on track to be a scientist, 0:09:03.87 –> 0:09:06.65 I an I went away for a year and worked 0:09:06.724 –> 0:09:09.764 at the University of Sussex and then came 0:09:09.764 –> 0:09:12.87 back which allowed me to stay in Berkeley. 0:09:12.87 –> 0:09:14.946 Usually you have to do your 0:09:14.946 –> 0:09:16.33 graduate work someplace else, 0:09:16.33 –> 0:09:18.454 but keeping on the track to 0:09:18.454 –> 0:09:20.479 do what I had to do, 0:09:20.48 –> 0:09:22.44 I went to work in the laboratory

8 0:09:22.44 –> 0:09:24.84 of a Nobel Prize winner and this 0:09:24.84 –> 0:09:27.072 he was Melvin Calvin who discovered 0:09:27.139 –> 0:09:28.627 the photosynthesis cycle which 0:09:28.627 –> 0:09:31.257 is now known as the Calvin Cycle. 0:09:31.257 –> 0:09:34.433 But of course it wasn’t in those days. 0:09:34.44 –> 0:09:34.893 Anne. 0:09:34.893 –> 0:09:38.064 He had a huge labion 20 combination 0:09:38.064 –> 0:09:40.939 of graduate students and postdocs. 0:09:40.94 –> 0:09:41.357 Ann, 0:09:41.357 –> 0:09:44.276 we decided in because that was the 0:09:44.276 –> 0:09:47.829 way we did things in those days too. 0:09:47.83 –> 0:09:50.262 Demand that he get off the Board of 0:09:50.262 –> 0:09:52.077 Directors of Dow Chemical because 0:09:52.077 –> 0:09:53.217 it made napalm. 0:09:53.22 –> 0:09:55.66 An he said to us, 0:09:55.66 –> 0:09:59.516 do go to hell just you’re fired, he fired. 0:09:59.516 –> 0:10:01.112 All of us just called his name 0:10:01.112 –> 0:10:03.039 is student newspapers called the 0:10:03.039 –> 0:10:04.269 Saturday Night Massacre. 0:10:04.27 –> 0:10:06.2 So this is when you are Berkeley 0:10:06.2 –> 0:10:07.87 hours Berkeley. So I was right. 0:10:07.87 –> 0:10:09.526 This is what I was pushed. 0:10:09.53 –> 0:10:10.91 Fast forwarding to undergraduate student. 0:10:10.91 –> 0:10:13.796 K and I had finished by. 0:10:13.8 –> 0:10:15.843 Or else for my PhD and I was about 0:10:15.843 –> 0:10:18.133 to thinking about it thesis and at 0:10:18.133 –> 0:10:20.405 that moment I happened just fortuitously 0:10:20.405 –> 0:10:23.033 to meet somebody from Science magazine, 0:10:23.04 –> 0:10:25.35 and that’s how I got into journalism. 0:10:25.35 –> 0:10:27 But if it hadn’t met, 0:10:27 –> 0:10:28.65 Melvin Calvin hadn’t kicked me

9 0:10:28.65 –> 0:10:29.978 out of his laboratory. 0:10:29.978 –> 0:10:32.609 I might have been assigned to this day. 0:10:32.61 –> 0:10:34.26 Oh wow, so that’s that’s 0:10:34.26 –> 0:10:34.92 absolutely fascinating. 0:10:34.92 –> 0:10:36.9 So so during your undergraduate years, 0:10:36.9 –> 0:10:39.54 you were you were writing, and I didn’t 0:10:39.54 –> 0:10:41.52 write so much under my eyes. 0:10:41.52 –> 0:10:42.98 In my undergraduate years, 0:10:42.98 –> 0:10:45.575 I started that more as when I 0:10:45.575 –> 0:10:47.549 came back as a graduate student. 0:10:47.55 –> 0:10:49.926 And wrote a column for the 0:10:49.926 –> 0:10:51.114 Daily Californian’s newspaper, 0:10:51.12 –> 0:10:53.11 but then they would buy. 0:10:53.11 –> 0:10:56.986 This is now in 1970 and. 0:10:56.99 –> 0:10:58.574 Long before can skate and 0:10:58.574 –> 0:11:00.154 a lot of other things, 0:11:00.16 –> 0:11:01.428 there was actually shootings 0:11:01.428 –> 0:11:02.696 in tear gas constantly. 0:11:02.7 –> 0:11:03.332 At Berkeley. 0:11:03.332 –> 0:11:04.596 It was a very, 0:11:04.6 –> 0:11:05.864 very disruptive from from 0:11:05.864 –> 0:11:07.444 2 control of the protests. 0:11:07.45 –> 0:11:09.038 Or, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. 0:11:09.04 –> 0:11:10.852 This is a part of history 0:11:10.852 –> 0:11:12.84 that I don’t know very well, 0:11:12.84 –> 0:11:14.736 so this is absolutely fascinating for 0:11:14.74 –> 0:11:17.91 me. Yeah, I wanted we could go oﬀ on that, 0:11:17.91 –> 0:11:19.5 but it’s yeah, it was. 0:11:19.5 –> 0:11:21.607 There were so good science and good 0:11:21.607 –> 0:11:23.3 teaching and smart people there. 0:11:23.3 –> 0:11:25.065 Obviously it’s a world class

10 0:11:25.065 –> 0:11:27.22 University and but I think that. 0:11:27.22 –> 0:11:29.275 In retrospect, the politics were 0:11:29.275 –> 0:11:32.127 so dominant that I got less out 0:11:32.127 –> 0:11:34.281 of the experience of being there 0:11:34.281 –> 0:11:36.719 that I could have if it were, 0:11:36.72 –> 0:11:37.86 say, yeah, or 0:11:37.86 –> 0:11:40.158 someplace else. What was it like 0:11:40.158 –> 0:11:42.04 working at a scientiﬁc lab? 0:11:42.04 –> 0:11:43.94 You know, a science lab. 0:11:43.94 –> 0:11:46.481 During a moment when there was a 0:11:46.481 –> 0:11:48.499 heavy anti science sentiment in 0:11:48.5 –> 0:11:50.929 your generation. I don’t remember that my 0:11:50.929 –> 0:11:53.06 generation had anti science sentiment. 0:11:53.06 –> 0:11:54.804 The environmental movement was 0:11:54.804 –> 0:11:57.96 just beginning and I I had never. 0:11:57.96 –> 0:12:00.473 Seen as anti science and you talk 0:12:00.473 –> 0:12:03.738 about anti science now in terms of the 0:12:03.738 –> 0:12:05.848 regulations that the Trump administration 0:12:05.919 –> 0:12:08.804 is trying to illuminate. But I don’t. 0:12:08.804 –> 0:12:12.244 I don’t ever recall feeling and I any 0:12:12.244 –> 0:12:15.208 anti science sentiment and I don’t. 0:12:15.21 –> 0:12:17.382 And Pew surveys now and things 0:12:17.382 –> 0:12:19.7 got along for a long time. 0:12:19.7 –> 0:12:22.318 In science, it held it enormous respect. 0:12:22.32 –> 0:12:23.06 Still an 0:12:23.06 –> 0:12:25.314 was then I guess I associate the 0:12:25.314 –> 0:12:27.324 protests against the war and 0:12:27.324 –> 0:12:29.05 against experimentation. Things like 0:12:29.05 –> 0:12:30.151 that. Yeah, well, 0:12:30.151 –> 0:12:33.16 the report is against the war for sure, 0:12:33.16 –> 0:12:35.778 and I felt very strongly and myself,

11 0:12:35.78 –> 0:12:38.398 and that it was an awful situation. 0:12:38.4 –> 0:12:40.871 But it wasn’t about science except in 0:12:40.871 –> 0:12:43.258 very specific ways like making weapons. 0:12:43.26 –> 0:12:44.82 But the scientific community 0:12:44.82 –> 0:12:45.99 was growing enormously. 0:12:45.99 –> 0:12:49.086 In those days and one of the first stories 0:12:49.086 –> 0:12:52.254 I covered when I got to Science magazine 0:12:52.254 –> 0:12:56.1 was the war on cancer that Richard Nixon was. 0:12:56.1 –> 0:12:57.99 Forced to sign. He wasn’t. 0:12:57.99 –> 0:13:00.636 Nobody put a gun to his head, 0:13:00.64 –> 0:13:02.728 but he was politically 0:13:02.728 –> 0:13:04.294 very wealthy lobbyists. 0:13:04.3 –> 0:13:07.316 Who spend all our time on health matters, 0:13:07.32 –> 0:13:08.472 name Mary Lasker. 0:13:08.472 –> 0:13:10.776 Put together this coalition of Democrats 0:13:10.776 –> 0:13:13.298 and Republicans and and they didn’t want 0:13:13.298 –> 0:13:15.99 to hear about basic science they wanted. 0:13:15.99 –> 0:13:18.96 Why isn’t there a cure for cancer and used 0:13:18.96 –> 0:13:22.118 and became known as the War on cancer even 0:13:22.118 –> 0:13:25.037 though it wasn’t officially called that? 0:13:25.04 –> 0:13:27.532 But of course whenever you declare war 0:13:27.532 –> 0:13:29.939 on something that people start asking. 0:13:29.94 –> 0:13:32.194 Or are we winning the war? 0:13:32.194 –> 0:13:34.456 And that question goes on today? 0:13:34.46 –> 0:13:35.66 Because the. 0:13:35.66 –> 0:13:36.86 Numbers of. 0:13:36.86 –> 0:13:39.86 Cancer deaths in the United 0:13:39.86 –> 0:13:42.09 States especially are. 0:13:42.09 –> 0:13:44.27 Despite all the miraculous sounding 0:13:44.27 –> 0:13:46.45 things we hear about immunotherapy’s 0:13:46.519 –> 0:13:48.399 another and targeted therapies,

12 0:13:48.4 –> 0:13:50.58 other treatments is vastly driven 0:13:50.58 –> 0:13:53.742 by the amount of people smoke or 0:13:53.742 –> 0:13:56.448 how many people are obese and 0:13:56.448 –> 0:13:58.33 things environmental factors that 0:13:58.33 –> 0:14:01.024 have nothing to do with treatment. 0:14:02.54 –> 0:14:06.404 So. The decision for you did go 0:14:06.404 –> 0:14:08.495 to Science magazine and become a 0:14:08.495 –> 0:14:10.88 full time writer. Yeah, I was. I 0:14:10.88 –> 0:14:13.608 was on the staﬀ was very early announced. 0:14:13.61 –> 0:14:16.376 Now it’s a giant and very. 0:14:16.38 –> 0:14:17.7 Very very good section 0:14:17.7 –> 0:14:19.02 of of Science magazine. 0:14:19.02 –> 0:14:21.99 But in those days just a few of us, 0:14:21.99 –> 0:14:23.97 I think I was a third 0:14:23.97 –> 0:14:26.399 higher reported on some of the biggest 0:14:26.399 –> 0:14:28.424 science stories that have happened in 0:14:28.424 –> 0:14:30.566 the last for more than my lifetime. 0:14:30.57 –> 0:14:32.55 At least the last 30 four 0:14:32.55 –> 0:14:33.814 years already I was. 0:14:33.814 –> 0:14:36.133 I was at NBC for 38 years 0:14:36.133 –> 0:14:38.485 an the I came there in nine. 0:14:38.49 –> 0:14:42.117 I went to local news for six months in. 0:14:42.12 –> 0:14:45.144 1976, and then they sent me 0:14:45.144 –> 0:14:47.81 to Washington for a year. 0:14:47.81 –> 0:14:49.97 But I was always tagged to be the 0:14:49.97 –> 0:14:51.959 science and medicine correspondent. 0:14:51.96 –> 0:14:53.685 Was that on account of 0:14:53.685 –> 0:14:55.08 your science, training or 0:14:55.08 –> 0:14:57.15 person? Because of my size training, 0:14:57.15 –> 0:14:59.348 they in the mid 70s there were 0:14:59.348 –> 0:15:00.96 still only three networks,

13 0:15:00.96 –> 0:15:03.375 which of course makes an enormous diﬀerence. 0:15:03.38 –> 0:15:05.795 If you want to talk about televisions, 0:15:05.8 –> 0:15:08.215 nothing like the media environment of today. 0:15:08.22 –> 0:15:10.055 An enormous percentage of American 0:15:10.055 –> 0:15:12.583 public sat down at 6:30 or 7:00 0:15:12.583 –> 0:15:14.133 o’clock and watch the Evening 0:15:14.133 –> 0:15:16.53 News on one of the three networks. 0:15:16.53 –> 0:15:19.635 And that’s why my voice was familiar to you. 0:15:19.64 –> 0:15:20.32 Because you. 0:15:20.32 –> 0:15:23.04 You heard it when you were growing up, 0:15:23.04 –> 0:15:24.755 along with almost everybody was 0:15:24.755 –> 0:15:26.801 on television and I remember a 0:15:26.801 –> 0:15:28.445 colleague when I got the NBC 0:15:28.445 –> 0:15:29.9 very beginning in my career. 0:15:29.9 –> 0:15:31.636 He said you have to realize there 0:15:31.636 –> 0:15:34.094 were fewer of us and he meant network 0:15:34.094 –> 0:15:35.422 television correspondents for the 0:15:35.422 –> 0:15:37.079 major news organizations here. 0:15:37.08 –> 0:15:38.91 There’s fewer of us than there 0:15:38.91 –> 0:15:40.819 are members of the US Senate. 0:15:41.96 –> 0:15:44.29 I never thought of that. Yeah, that’s 0:15:44.29 –> 0:15:46.312 fair, yeah, and he was so 0:15:46.312 –> 0:15:48.289 we had a position and uh, 0:15:48.29 –> 0:15:50.06 of authority and responsibility and I 0:15:50.06 –> 0:15:52.279 hope we carried out the responsibility, 0:15:52.28 –> 0:15:54.614 but it was nothing. And, you know, 0:15:54.614 –> 0:15:56.274 get recognized on the street. 0:15:56.28 –> 0:15:58.604 Then you know people like you reckon. 0:15:58.61 –> 0:16:00.27 Remember, my voice is for 0:16:00.27 –> 0:16:01.266 very heartening experience, 0:16:01.27 –> 0:16:03.552 so I had a touch of celebrity

14 0:16:03.552 –> 0:16:05.938 without any of the burdens of it. 0:16:05.94 –> 0:16:06.939 I was never. 0:16:06.94 –> 0:16:09.27 That’s pretty ideal I guess. Yeah, right, 0:16:09.27 –> 0:16:10.598 because it was. It’s 0:16:10.598 –> 0:16:11.6 interesting. Because the. 0:16:14.74 –> 0:16:16.588 I almost never had anybody complained 0:16:16.588 –> 0:16:18.707 to me about stories when they recognize 0:16:18.707 –> 0:16:20.91 me and I would get recognized a lot. 0:16:20.91 –> 0:16:22.395 And usually people wouldn’t bother 0:16:22.395 –> 0:16:24.15 me with them when they did, 0:16:24.15 –> 0:16:25.566 it was just complementary. 0:16:25.566 –> 0:16:27.69 They say they enjoyed this story 0:16:27.75 –> 0:16:29.55 about this or that I remember. 0:16:29.55 –> 0:16:30.738 Speaking to Michael Kinsley, 0:16:30.738 –> 0:16:32.52 who was an editor at the 0:16:32.578 –> 0:16:33.978 time at the New Republic, 0:16:33.98 –> 0:16:35.45 where I occasionally wrote articles, 0:16:35.45 –> 0:16:37.81 and he was on Crossﬁre with Pat Buchanan, 0:16:37.81 –> 0:16:40.17 and he said, everybody came up to him, 0:16:40.17 –> 0:16:42.235 and they wanted to ﬁnish the argument. 0:16:42.24 –> 0:16:43.415 So if you’re on, 0:16:43.415 –> 0:16:45.452 and that would be just the beginning 0:16:45.452 –> 0:16:47.18 of that kind of television where 0:16:47.236 –> 0:16:48.726 people scream at each other, 0:16:48.73 –> 0:16:50.5 we didn’t do that, we told, 0:16:50.5 –> 0:16:51.382 told a story, 0:16:51.382 –> 0:16:53.146 and a certain amount of time. 0:16:53.15 –> 0:16:53.74 So it 0:16:53.74 –> 0:16:55.51 occur to me that you know, 0:16:55.51 –> 0:16:57.498 and I’m sure this is delivered on 0:16:57.498 –> 0:17:00.096 account of your the medium, that you’re.

15 0:17:00.096 –> 0:17:03.234 Reporting on, but your story is. 0:17:03.24 –> 0:17:04.708 Almost invariably presented a 0:17:04.708 –> 0:17:06.543 scientiﬁc topic like some science 0:17:06.543 –> 0:17:08.24 concept very clearly very simply, 0:17:08.24 –> 0:17:11.444 but they also had a almost a case study, 0:17:11.45 –> 0:17:12.866 like a person involved, 0:17:12.866 –> 0:17:14.636 and so it’s like you’re 0:17:14.636 –> 0:17:16.462 presenting the concept and then 0:17:16.462 –> 0:17:18.222 the application of the concept. 0:17:18.23 –> 0:17:19.658 In the real world, 0:17:19.658 –> 0:17:21.8 an was at a common formula. 0:17:21.8 –> 0:17:24.299 Yeah, it was a very standard form, 0:17:24.3 –> 0:17:24.994 formulaic thing, 0:17:24.994 –> 0:17:26.382 and sometimes occasion there 0:17:26.382 –> 0:17:28.23 would be the occasional scandal. 0:17:28.23 –> 0:17:30.806 Or is the thing that things that 0:17:30.806 –> 0:17:32.868 didn’t workout as as you plan, 0:17:32.87 –> 0:17:35.06 but for the most part. 0:17:35.06 –> 0:17:36.575 If you’re telling a story 0:17:36.575 –> 0:17:37.787 about a medical advance, 0:17:37.79 –> 0:17:40.508 you have to have a human being in it, 0:17:40.51 –> 0:17:42.202 and I think that sometimes you 0:17:42.202 –> 0:17:43.724 can convey the wrong impression 0:17:43.724 –> 0:17:46.083 because you want to have the more 0:17:46.083 –> 0:17:47.479 attractive human being in it. 0:17:47.48 –> 0:17:48.696 And like, for instance, 0:17:48.696 –> 0:17:50.874 if you’re doing a story about cancer 0:17:50.874 –> 0:17:52.883 that that was one of the questions 0:17:52.883 –> 0:17:55.041 I always ask my students is what’s 0:17:55.041 –> 0:17:56.873 the biggest risk factor for cancer. 0:17:56.873 –> 0:17:57.782 And of course,

16 0:17:57.782 –> 0:17:59.297 people say chemicals or cigarettes 0:17:59.297 –> 0:18:00.82 is the most common answer, 0:18:00.82 –> 0:18:03.9 but of course it’s age. 0:18:03.9 –> 0:18:04.59 Only one 0:18:04.59 –> 0:18:06.672 one out of eight women will 0:18:06.672 –> 0:18:08.06 develop breast cancer. Yeah, 0:18:08.06 –> 0:18:10.461 but most of them will develop in 0:18:10.461 –> 0:18:12.939 their 60s and 70s and then add 0:18:12.939 –> 0:18:14.997 it as since that’s my cohort, 0:18:15 –> 0:18:18.357 I’m not eager for it to happen, but I’m just. 0:18:18.357 –> 0:18:20.52 But there are about 12,000 cases of 0:18:20.589 –> 0:18:22.989 pediatric cancer in the United States. 0:18:22.99 –> 0:18:24.725 Deaths from pediatric cancer in 0:18:24.725 –> 0:18:26.46 the United States every year, 0:18:26.46 –> 0:18:28.875 which each one is a horrible tragedy. 0:18:28.88 –> 0:18:31.309 But there’s 600,000 deaths from adult cancer, 0:18:31.31 –> 0:18:34.068 so you have to look at that. 0:18:34.07 –> 0:18:35.738 As a proportion of 0:18:35.74 –> 0:18:38.764 the so you you knew you know the 0:18:38.764 –> 0:18:41.579 fundamentals of the field and immunology, 0:18:41.58 –> 0:18:44.604 and then you found yourself in the 80s 0:18:44.604 –> 0:18:47.83 and 90s reporting on the AIDS crisis. 0:18:47.83 –> 0:18:50.872 So how what was that like and how did 0:18:50.872 –> 0:18:54.265 you interact with the communities on the 0:18:54.265 –> 0:18:57.427 cyantific and the policy and the well? 0:18:57.427 –> 0:19:01.18 I was one of the first people there and 0:19:01.18 –> 0:19:03.795 that was so is very 0:19:03.795 –> 0:19:05.887 welcomed because they were. 0:19:05.89 –> 0:19:07.925 Languishing in lack of adversity 0:19:07.925 –> 0:19:10.376 and the lack of publicity was 0:19:10.376 –> 0:19:12.398 at the beginning was not just

17 0:19:12.398 –> 0:19:14.469 because of the Ronald Reagan, 0:19:14.47 –> 0:19:16.03 famously not saying the 0:19:16.03 –> 0:19:17.98 word aids for many years, 0:19:17.98 –> 0:19:19.93 and the government not being 0:19:19.93 –> 0:19:21.1 interested in disease. 0:19:21.1 –> 0:19:23.344 It very quickly was seem to 0:19:23.344 –> 0:19:24.84 be just aﬀecting stigmatized 0:19:24.912 –> 0:19:26.947 groups and then poor countries, 0:19:26.95 –> 0:19:28.9 mostly in Sub Saharan Africa. 0:19:28.9 –> 0:19:31.036 But throughout the world there was 0:19:31.036 –> 0:19:34.147 also a lot of resistance in the gay 0:19:34.147 –> 0:19:36.553 community to talking about it at 0:19:36.632 –> 0:19:39.158 ﬁrst because they didn’t want it. 0:19:39.16 –> 0:19:42.52 They thought it would bring on more stigma, 0:19:42.52 –> 0:19:45.719 but it only been since the stone 0:19:45.719 –> 0:19:49.081 Stonewall riots in 1969 that there had 0:19:49.081 –> 0:19:52.29 been a gay liberation movement an in. 0:19:52.29 –> 0:19:53.814 19 was very recently I have 0:19:53.814 –> 0:19:55.54 to look this up with Lawrence 0:19:55.54 –> 0:19:57.49 versus Texas was in the 1980s, 0:19:57.49 –> 0:20:00.172 which is a Supreme Court case that said that. 0:20:00.18 –> 0:20:01.88 Anti sodomy laws were unconstitutional. 0:20:01.88 –> 0:20:02.9 I think was 0:20:02.9 –> 0:20:04.94 more recent than that. Yeah is 0:20:04.94 –> 0:20:05.798 very very recent. 0:20:05.798 –> 0:20:09.064 Yeah so a lot of you know a lot of 0:20:09.064 –> 0:20:11.059 states homosexuality was illegal right? 0:20:11.06 –> 0:20:13.106 And so they didn’t want people 0:20:13.106 –> 0:20:15.478 coming in and asking them about it. 0:20:15.48 –> 0:20:17.66 So it was. It was, uh, 0:20:17.66 –> 0:20:20.54 I mean I quickly made friends

18 0:20:20.54 –> 0:20:22.919 and Anne was able to. 0:20:22.92 –> 0:20:25.096 Do and I mean my my greatest regret 0:20:25.096 –> 0:20:27.631 is I didn’t do more about HIV aids 0:20:27.631 –> 0:20:30.095 even though I got a lot of credit 0:20:30.095 –> 0:20:32.254 for what I did do because I also 0:20:32.254 –> 0:20:33.948 at the same time was covering the 0:20:33.948 –> 0:20:35.61 space Shuttle artiﬁcial hearts. 0:20:37.83 –> 0:20:39.734 Rollins of Cancer and you know there was 0:20:39.734 –> 0:20:41.254 there was constantly constant stories 0:20:41.254 –> 0:20:43.228 and you just mentioned BF Skinner, 0:20:43.23 –> 0:20:44.65 which I’d completely forgotten about. 0:20:44.65 –> 0:20:46.21 Yeah, that was also during the 0:20:46.21 –> 0:20:48.049 day when he was just starting 0:20:48.05 –> 0:20:49.905 up. He was just just the breath 0:20:49.905 –> 0:20:51.748 of the stories that you covered. 0:20:51.75 –> 0:20:53.448 Like all of the big topics, 0:20:53.45 –> 0:20:54.586 all the big topics. 0:20:54.586 –> 0:20:57.43 You were there, right? 0:20:57.43 –> 0:20:59.536 I was enormously blessed by that 0:20:59.536 –> 0:21:01.832 because of that I’ve had this huge 0:21:01.832 –> 0:21:04.162 amount of you to wake up in the 0:21:04.162 –> 0:21:05.952 morning and always do something 0:21:05.952 –> 0:21:08.052 that you can think is interesting. 0:21:08.052 –> 0:21:09.376 For the most part. 0:21:09.38 –> 0:21:10.708 Obviously it doesn’t always 0:21:10.71 –> 0:21:12.702 work out well, so how does 0:21:12.702 –> 0:21:14.03 that work practically for 0:21:14.03 –> 0:21:16.016 you? Well, a lot of those. 0:21:16.02 –> 0:21:18.452 A lot of the reporting was based on 0:21:18.452 –> 0:21:20.997 what was coming out in the journals. 0:21:21 –> 0:21:23.247 Is journals probably too large in extent

19 0:21:23.247 –> 0:21:25.999 and I think see now the major publications 0:21:25.999 –> 0:21:28.35 are backing off from just covering. 0:21:28.35 –> 0:21:32.337 You know what’s new in Journal or JAMA or. 0:21:32.34 –> 0:21:35.068 Science or nature disk. 0:21:35.068 –> 0:21:37.796 The size is important. 0:21:37.8 –> 0:21:43.056 The but will you know if people know this? 0:21:43.06 –> 0:21:45.293 Press releases are given up in an 0:21:45.293 –> 0:21:47.563 embargoed fashion a few days in advance 0:21:47.563 –> 0:21:49.759 so that scientists can excuse me so 0:21:49.759 –> 0:21:51.823 the reporters can get a chance to get 0:21:51.823 –> 0:21:54.155 up to speed on the story before they 0:21:54.155 –> 0:21:56.298 have to write it or broadcast it. 0:21:56.3 –> 0:21:57.956 But that also has the effect 0:21:57.956 –> 0:21:59.92 of at 2:00 PM on Thursday. 0:21:59.92 –> 0:22:01.72 If a story, say in science, 0:22:01.72 –> 0:22:03.526 it’ll come out on every broadcast 0:22:03.526 –> 0:22:04.429 and print medium, 0:22:04.43 –> 0:22:07.139 and as a result it looks like it’s news. 0:22:07.14 –> 0:22:09.079 But of course anybody in the field 0:22:09.079 –> 0:22:11.252 will have heard about this is a 0:22:11.252 –> 0:22:12.852 conference and talking like sponsor, 0:22:12.86 –> 0:22:13.46 yeah, but 0:22:13.46 –> 0:22:15.567 it’s been going on for a long 0:22:15.57 –> 0:22:17.442 time, but this is when it 0:22:17.442 –> 0:22:18.56 becomes official. News. 0:22:19.19 –> 0:22:22.565 So how do you? How do you manage that? 0:22:22.57 –> 0:22:26.33 So I just want to return to the AIDS crisis. 0:22:26.33 –> 0:22:28.514 So, so here you’re you’re reading 0:22:28.514 –> 0:22:30.85 reports of the death toll rising, 0:22:30.85 –> 0:22:33.1 or maybe giving those reports yourself, 0:22:33.1 –> 0:22:37.3 sure, and how? How do you know?

20 0:22:37.3 –> 0:22:38.75 Where to go after that? 0:22:38.75 –> 0:22:40.19 Like how do you find? 0:22:40.19 –> 0:22:42.494 How do you find groups to speak with? 0:22:42.5 –> 0:22:45.092 How do you select what scientists to go and 0:22:45.1 –> 0:22:46.55 speak with? Well, it was. 0:22:46.55 –> 0:22:49.413 It was pretty obvious that there were 0:22:49.413 –> 0:22:52.398 there weren’t that many scientists in the. 0:22:52.4 –> 0:22:54.962 In the field, who really cared about 0:22:54.962 –> 0:22:57.64 it so he wasn’t hard or doctors 0:22:57.64 –> 0:23:00.991 under the one of you in the building 0:23:00.991 –> 0:23:03.546 where we’re doing this podcast? 0:23:03.55 –> 0:23:06.028 As I just saw Jerry Friedlander, 0:23:06.03 –> 0:23:08.922 who is a hero of HIV, AIDS, 0:23:08.922 –> 0:23:12.218 and I started interviewing him in the 1980s. 0:23:12.22 –> 0:23:14.796 He was in the Bronx when there 0:23:14.796 –> 0:23:16.898 was this horrible epidemic among 0:23:16.898 –> 0:23:19.658 Ivy drug users and their spouses, 0:23:19.66 –> 0:23:22.18 an children, an he since done 0:23:22.18 –> 0:23:24.899 marvelous work in South Africa with. 0:23:24.9 –> 0:23:26.34 HIV, AIDS and tuberculosis, 0:23:26.34 –> 0:23:27.42 and he continues. 0:23:27.42 –> 0:23:29.22 I mean, she’s here today. 0:23:29.22 –> 0:23:31.02 Usually he’s in South Africa, 0:23:31.02 –> 0:23:33.9 so he was here and they’re like, yeah, 0:23:33.9 –> 0:23:37.624 they just signed who just saw a 0:23:37.624 –> 0:23:41.712 few minutes ago? Turnovers. Yeah, 0:23:41.712 –> 0:23:45.06 so you’re going all over the US all over 0:23:45.06 –> 0:23:46.548 the world warning world. 0:23:46.548 –> 0:23:48.78 Yeah, I was sure I would. 0:23:48.78 –> 0:23:51.006 NBC was very good about that. 0:23:51.01 –> 0:23:53.93 Sending me to Africa and going at the

21 0:23:53.93 –> 0:23:56.485 beginning going to Haiti 1st and then 0:23:56.485 –> 0:23:58.697 Africa was very tough because they 0:23:58.697 –> 0:24:01.007 everybody didn’t want to be blamed 0:24:01.007 –> 0:24:03.658 for this disease and they it was. 0:24:03.658 –> 0:24:05.89 It was highly stigmatized as well. 0:24:05.89 –> 0:24:08.128 What do you mean like the 0:24:08.128 –> 0:24:09.242 government or anything? 0:24:09.242 –> 0:24:10.726 The government certainly ANAN, 0:24:10.73 –> 0:24:14.79 but finally it would. In our first. 0:24:14.79 –> 0:24:17.254 What when I first went to Haiti? 0:24:17.26 –> 0:24:22.38 Which you know this thing came up where. 0:24:22.38 –> 0:24:24.792 Doctors were seeing people mostly in 0:24:24.792 –> 0:24:28.195 New York and in Miami, who were Haitians? 0:24:28.195 –> 0:24:29.44 What originally was? 0:24:29.44 –> 0:24:34.074 It was gaming and drug users an. 0:24:34.08 –> 0:24:35.348 And there was no, 0:24:35.348 –> 0:24:37.25 they didn’t have any risk factors. 0:24:37.25 –> 0:24:39.546 Nobody knew that there was a massive 0:24:39.546 –> 0:24:41.687 epidemic going in Haiti at the time, 0:24:41.69 –> 0:24:43.769 but I went to Haiti and was 0:24:43.769 –> 0:24:45.392 followed around by the secret 0:24:45.392 –> 0:24:47.702 police and nobody would talk to me. 0:24:47.71 –> 0:24:49.775 But of course I could talk to 0:24:49.775 –> 0:24:51.83 Haitian doctors in the United States. 0:24:51.83 –> 0:24:53.415 But there was enormous discrimination 0:24:53.415 –> 0:24:54.049 against station. 0:24:54.05 –> 0:24:55.866 So I did a piece in 1983 where 0:24:55.866 –> 0:24:57.801 we had Haitian saying that they 0:24:57.801 –> 0:24:59.931 were fired just because they were 0:25:00.001 –> 0:25:01.776 Haitians and families were afraid 0:25:01.776 –> 0:25:04.175 that they would get AIDS from.

22 0:25:04.175 –> 0:25:06.96 They were ﬁred in the US because reasons. 0:25:08.63 –> 0:25:10.706 Well, so that’s an aspect of 0:25:10.706 –> 0:25:12.564 medicine that we’re only starting 0:25:12.564 –> 0:25:14.579 as physicians to talk about. 0:25:14.58 –> 0:25:17.556 You know, the stigma and the social factors. 0:25:17.56 –> 0:25:19.9 Like in psychiatry we have this 0:25:19.9 –> 0:25:21.46 biopsychosocial model where for 0:25:21.527 –> 0:25:23.739 every patient we have to try to 0:25:23.739 –> 0:25:25.37 consider the social situation. 0:25:25.37 –> 0:25:28.58 And so you were reporting on a lot of this 0:25:28.657 –> 0:25:31.321 in from a medical perspective, right? 0:25:31.321 –> 0:25:33.547 ’cause this is what it was, 0:25:33.55 –> 0:25:36.418 a medical, introspective and one of 0:25:36.418 –> 0:25:39.671 the things I went to San Francisco 0:25:39.671 –> 0:25:42.576 a lot to do the reporting an. 0:25:42.58 –> 0:25:44.799 And I wasn’t the only Reporter who 0:25:44.799 –> 0:25:47.162 did that for the domestic reporting 0:25:47.162 –> 0:25:49.397 on the emerging azik epidemic. 0:25:49.4 –> 0:25:51.512 And the reason was San Francisco 0:25:51.512 –> 0:25:54.2 had a large gay community of young 0:25:54.2 –> 0:25:56.6 men who had recently come out, 0:25:56.6 –> 0:25:58.88 and they were very politically powerful. 0:25:58.88 –> 0:26:01.112 There was, they had 70,000 registered 0:26:01.112 –> 0:26:03.43 voters in a city of 600,000, 0:26:03.43 –> 0:26:06.076 so they were a considerable political force. 0:26:06.08 –> 0:26:07.64 And as a result, 0:26:07.64 –> 0:26:09.98 they weren’t as afraid an to 0:26:10.074 –> 0:26:11.55 be open and talk. 0:26:11.55 –> 0:26:13.695 And then San Francisco General 0:26:13.695 –> 0:26:15.84 opened its dedicated AIDS units, 0:26:15.84 –> 0:26:18.408 the inpatient and outpatient in 1983.

23 0:26:18.41 –> 0:26:21.85 And so we go even go in there. 0:26:21.85 –> 0:26:25.702 If I there were big institutions in New York, 0:26:25.71 –> 0:26:28.242 want some of which refused to 0:26:28.242 –> 0:26:30.43 treat people with HIV AIDS, 0:26:30.43 –> 0:26:33.502 which then you can argue about all the 0:26:33.502 –> 0:26:36.43 ethics of that others like Bellevue, 0:26:36.43 –> 0:26:40.618 which were just completely overrun the. 0:26:40.62 –> 0:26:42.56 People who did their residencies, 0:26:42.56 –> 0:26:44.3 especially in internal medicine, 0:26:44.3 –> 0:26:47.339 but it almost anything and in the 0:26:47.339 –> 0:26:49.796 80s through the discovery of the good 0:26:49.796 –> 0:26:52.258 drugs in the mid 90s at Bellevue, 0:26:52.26 –> 0:26:54.2 which is a great residency, 0:26:54.2 –> 0:26:56.858 much sought after. 0:26:56.86 –> 0:26:58.58 So almost nothing but AIDS, 0:26:58.58 –> 0:27:00.939 so they were doing things like treating 0:27:00.939 –> 0:27:02.313 these rare opportunistic infections 0:27:02.313 –> 0:27:04.143 which in most situations you would 0:27:04.143 –> 0:27:06.49 never see an American medical practice. 0:27:06.49 –> 0:27:08.898 And as a whole they treated well. 0:27:08.9 –> 0:27:11.626 How did I let me ﬁnish on something? 0:27:11.626 –> 0:27:14.718 So a lot of these hospitals and I would 0:27:14.718 –> 0:27:17.196 not let camera crews in because they 0:27:17.196 –> 0:27:20.249 did not want the ones that did treat it. 0:27:20.25 –> 0:27:21.282 People with aids? 0:27:21.282 –> 0:27:21.97 They didn’t. 0:27:21.97 –> 0:27:24.385 They wouldn’t let you in there because 0:27:24.385 –> 0:27:26.56 they didn’t want their other patients 0:27:26.56 –> 0:27:28.696 to know that they were raised. 0:27:28.7 –> 0:27:30.718 And in the war, oh. 0:27:30.72 –> 0:27:31.719 So they didn’t.

24 0:27:31.719 –> 0:27:34.05 We couldn’t take a TV crew in 0:27:34.128 –> 0:27:35.61 just most hospitals. 0:27:36.26 –> 0:27:37.75 So you couldn’t show people 0:27:37.75 –> 0:27:38.942 with the situation was 0:27:38.95 –> 0:27:40.45 like yeah, but you couldn’t. 0:27:40.45 –> 0:27:42.022 San Francisco and I did sometimes 0:27:42.022 –> 0:27:44.115 in New York we there were certain 0:27:44.115 –> 0:27:46.083 places like Albert Einstein was much 0:27:46.083 –> 0:27:48.215 more open about it than other places, 0:27:48.22 –> 0:27:49.936 but most most places would not 0:27:49.936 –> 0:27:51.756 let it TV anywhere near or 0:27:51.756 –> 0:27:53.296 whether people talk about it. 0:27:53.3 –> 0:27:54.02 Talk about it. 0:27:54.02 –> 0:27:56.136 I mean they would show up at conferences 0:27:56.136 –> 0:27:58.386 and you could interview them there, 0:27:58.39 –> 0:28:00.774 but not in the context of their hospital. 0:28:01.76 –> 0:28:04.672 So I when I rotated through an 0:28:04.672 –> 0:28:06.761 infectious disease, units just as 0:28:06.761 –> 0:28:08.846 part of my medical internship, 0:28:08.85 –> 0:28:11.741 some of my attendings were either Chinese 0:28:11.741 –> 0:28:14.292 or already attendings during that period 0:28:14.292 –> 0:28:17.183 and asking them questions about this crisis. 0:28:17.19 –> 0:28:20.934 And you know how the public dealt with it, 0:28:20.94 –> 0:28:23.496 how the government of the FDA 0:28:23.496 –> 0:28:26.777 dealt with it on the NHS with it? 0:28:26.78 –> 0:28:28.86 It’s a very emotionally charged 0:28:28.86 –> 0:28:33.038 still even you know, 35 years later. 0:28:33.04 –> 0:28:36.3 Situation, so I’m curious how. 0:28:36.3 –> 0:28:38.355 How you navigated those emotions 0:28:38.355 –> 0:28:40.904 for yourself, like how you managed 0:28:40.904 –> 0:28:43.059 reporting on something so emotionally

25 0:28:43.059 –> 0:28:44.93 provocative and well, it was. 0:28:44.93 –> 0:28:46.16 It was an 0:28:46.16 –> 0:28:49.037 after a while. My biggest ﬁght with 0:28:49.037 –> 0:28:52.329 this was to get stories on the air, 0:28:52.33 –> 0:28:54.345 because when it became there 0:28:54.345 –> 0:28:56.854 were these big periods in the 0:28:56.854 –> 0:28:58.909 history of the AIDS epidemic. 0:28:58.91 –> 0:29:00.221 HIV AIDS epidemic. 0:29:00.221 –> 0:29:03.924 One is when Rock Hudson got sick and 0:29:03.924 –> 0:29:06.709 suddenly this gorgeous leading man. 0:29:06.71 –> 0:29:09.275 Why did so? Nobody knew he was gay and 0:29:09.275 –> 0:29:12.087 Magic Johnson in 1991 and other celebrities. 0:29:12.09 –> 0:29:14.682 So these you can see big spikes and 0:29:14.682 –> 0:29:17.129 interest in a disease at those times. 0:29:17.13 –> 0:29:18.81 But for the most part, 0:29:18.81 –> 0:29:20.49 especially especially before Rock Hudson, 0:29:20.49 –> 0:29:22.765 it was there wasn’t as much interest 0:29:22.765 –> 0:29:25.188 in it as I would have liked. 0:29:25.19 –> 0:29:27.75 I would keep coming back and trying to 0:29:27.75 –> 0:29:30.228 do stories and producers would say no, 0:29:30.23 –> 0:29:33.35 you know, go do a story on breast 0:29:33.35 –> 0:29:36.039 cancer or go do a story about. 0:29:36.04 –> 0:29:38.116 Chronic fatigue syndrome or something like 0:29:38.12 –> 0:29:42.18 that? Kind of critique central enough, right? 0:29:42.18 –> 0:29:44.616 What was their logic? Just they wanted 0:29:44.62 –> 0:29:46.852 more diverse. Well, they want people 0:29:46.852 –> 0:29:50.096 to watch the TV and the man putting on 0:29:50.096 –> 0:29:52.998 pictures of men who have sex with men or. 0:29:55.17 –> 0:29:56.78 People who inject drugs does 0:29:56.78 –> 0:29:58.39 not attract the audience that 0:29:58.449 –> 0:30:00.057 the television network wants.

26 0:30:01.23 –> 0:30:04.205 Interesting, well at the same time though, 0:30:04.21 –> 0:30:06.978 the presence of publicity. 0:30:06.98 –> 0:30:08.048 And and you know, 0:30:08.048 –> 0:30:09.383 obviously I’m talking as someone 0:30:09.383 –> 0:30:10.988 who wasn’t there and you know, 0:30:10.99 –> 0:30:13.118 I’m obviously not a scholar of this moment, 0:30:13.12 –> 0:30:15.526 but. Having the publicity allowed the 0:30:15.526 –> 0:30:18.515 science to catch up to the epidemic 0:30:18.515 –> 0:30:20.695 and allowed these politically active 0:30:20.695 –> 0:30:23.758 groups to be able to help sculpt policy. 0:30:23.76 –> 0:30:25.308 And so it was 0:30:25.31 –> 0:30:29.6 a great article. By Alan Brandt who’s 0:30:29.6 –> 0:30:32.03 a historian of medicine at Harvard. 0:30:32.03 –> 0:30:35.414 It was in the New England Journal of Medicine 0:30:35.414 –> 0:30:38.106 called How Aids created Global Health, 0:30:38.11 –> 0:30:40.495 and I highly recommend that 0:30:40.495 –> 0:30:43.488 you or your listeners check out 0:30:43.488 –> 0:30:45.568 that that article because. 0:30:45.57 –> 0:30:48.33 Many things that we take for granted today, 0:30:48.33 –> 0:30:49.686 such as patient activism, 0:30:49.686 –> 0:30:52.138 an the need to think about other 0:30:52.138 –> 0:30:54.539 people in a cooperative way and not. 0:30:57.15 –> 0:30:59.304 Not necessarily a condescending way which 0:30:59.304 –> 0:31:01.933 a lot of international health before the 0:31:01.933 –> 0:31:03.823 HIV epidemic was very condescending. 0:31:03.83 –> 0:31:06.032 You know we are donors would 0:31:06.032 –> 0:31:08.317 give with what they would give 0:31:08.317 –> 0:31:10.879 and it was preceded by a period. 0:31:10.88 –> 0:31:13.058 There was even worse which was 0:31:13.058 –> 0:31:14.96 Tropical Medicine where we would. 0:31:14.96 –> 0:31:16.815 You’re protecting our own people

27 0:31:16.815 –> 0:31:18.67 or our troops or whatever. 0:31:18.67 –> 0:31:21.085 So that has to do with the 0:31:21.085 –> 0:31:24.67 history of public health. But the. 0:31:24.67 –> 0:31:26.038 AIDS made everything diﬀerent. 0:31:26.038 –> 0:31:27.748 Was very clear that there 0:31:27.748 –> 0:31:29.379 was this massive epidemic, 0:31:29.38 –> 0:31:30.884 an one of the. 0:31:30.884 –> 0:31:34.108 And it it’s and there’s a lot of 0:31:34.108 –> 0:31:36.706 fear right now that there’s going 0:31:36.706 –> 0:31:40.777 to be a second wave of of because 0:31:40.777 –> 0:31:43.278 there’s 23.3 million people on 0:31:43.278 –> 0:31:45.418 antiretroviral drugs in the world 0:31:45.418 –> 0:31:47.13 was an astounding achievement, 0:31:47.13 –> 0:31:47.98 and the. 0:31:50.19 –> 0:31:52.464 If and Trump has reauthorized the 0:31:52.464 –> 0:31:53.98 Trump administration is reauthorized, 0:31:53.98 –> 0:31:55.87 PEPFAR, which is the major 0:31:55.87 –> 0:31:57.382 contributor for those bills. 0:31:57.39 –> 0:31:59.67 There are other donors as well, 0:31:59.67 –> 0:32:01.656 but the biggest chunk of that 0:32:01.656 –> 0:32:03.83 comes from the US government, 0:32:03.83 –> 0:32:05.725 and he proposes cutting into 0:32:05.725 –> 0:32:07.62 budget for it every year. 0:32:07.62 –> 0:32:09.846 An you people here in the Yale 0:32:09.846 –> 0:32:12.006 School of Public Health and others 0:32:12.006 –> 0:32:14.28 have done calculations you can do 0:32:14.28 –> 0:32:16.43 just very cold calculations for 0:32:16.43 –> 0:32:18.986 every $1,000,000 that gets cut back. 0:32:18.99 –> 0:32:22.03 How many million people are going to die? 0:32:22.03 –> 0:32:22.69 Because there? 0:32:22.69 –> 0:32:23.68 There’s no cure,

28 0:32:23.68 –> 0:32:25.626 and as a result there’s all these 0:32:25.626 –> 0:32:27.337 people that are going to die 0:32:27.337 –> 0:32:28.963 if they don’t get their drugs. 0:32:29.84 –> 0:32:31.44 So that’s the intersection of 0:32:31.44 –> 0:32:33.36 advocacy and policy. Then write an 0:32:33.36 –> 0:32:35.6 in that that came about them into. 0:32:35.6 –> 0:32:38.23 Don’t forget the. Larry Kramer, 0:32:38.23 –> 0:32:40.379 who I become I became very close 0:32:40.379 –> 0:32:42.574 to the famous AIDS activist who 0:32:42.574 –> 0:32:44.98 started the gay men’s health crisis, 0:32:44.98 –> 0:32:47.476 first as a support group in 0:32:47.476 –> 0:32:49.59 1981 and he started out. 0:32:49.59 –> 0:32:52.25 Screaming and yelling at there was this 0:32:52.25 –> 0:32:54.349 horrible thing going on and he was. 0:32:54.35 –> 0:32:56.59 He had enormous pushback from other members 0:32:56.59 –> 0:32:59.447 of the gay community that he was approved. 0:32:59.45 –> 0:33:01.844 He wanted to close down the bath 0:33:01.844 –> 0:33:03.914 houses that places where men went 0:33:03.914 –> 0:33:06.35 to have ****** and that was a huge 0:33:06.35 –> 0:33:08.642 part of the early years was fight 0:33:08.642 –> 0:33:10.922 within the gay community over whether 0:33:10.922 –> 0:33:13.423 to close down the bath houses and 0:33:13.423 –> 0:33:16.602 Kramer then got tired of the just the 0:33:16.602 –> 0:33:19.626 advocacy and he started acting up. 0:33:19.63 –> 0:33:22.104 An act up accomplished a lot of 0:33:22.104 –> 0:33:24.59 called attention to a lot of things, 0:33:24.59 –> 0:33:27.281 but then act up spun off yet another group 0:33:27.281 –> 0:33:29.538 called the Treatment Action Coalition, 0:33:29.54 –> 0:33:31.664 which exists to this day and 0:33:31.664 –> 0:33:32.726 as marvelous work, 0:33:32.73 –> 0:33:34.907 because what they did was they learn

29 0:33:34.907 –> 0:33:36.693 they became as knowledgeable about 0:33:36.693 –> 0:33:39.444 the disease as many of the scientists, 0:33:39.45 –> 0:33:42.29 so they thought and it was a big, 0:33:42.29 –> 0:33:44.794 big ﬁght to get a seat at the 0:33:44.794 –> 0:33:47.598 table on FDA and NIH review panels. 0:33:47.6 –> 0:33:49.64 And but they got it. 0:33:49.64 –> 0:33:51.596 And it made a big diﬀerence, 0:33:51.6 –> 0:33:53.24 and now it’s standard procedure. 0:33:53.24 –> 0:33:54.548 This consumer representatives and 0:33:54.548 –> 0:33:56.508 all those things. But it didn’t. 0:33:56.508 –> 0:33:58.138 It wasn’t always that way. 0:33:58.14 –> 0:34:00.471 And then the even people who were 0:34:00.471 –> 0:34:03.079 working full time on the problem at the 0:34:03.079 –> 0:34:05.339 NIH were disgusted at the idea none. 0:34:05.34 –> 0:34:06.97 Now that they were homophobic, 0:34:06.97 –> 0:34:08.6 but that non scientists would 0:34:08.6 –> 0:34:09.904 come into the room. 0:34:09.91 –> 0:34:12.852 But if you talk to some of these non 0:34:12.852 –> 0:34:14.488 scientists they actually had this, 0:34:14.49 –> 0:34:17.028 you know there’s. 0:34:17.03 –> 0:34:18.221 Cat’s encyclopedic knowledge. 0:34:18.221 –> 0:34:18.618 That’s 0:34:18.62 –> 0:34:20.972 so I’m turning around my head 0:34:20.972 –> 0:34:23.38 around this as as you know, 0:34:23.38 –> 0:34:25.355 someone that knows a little 0:34:25.355 –> 0:34:27.8 bit about the science but very 0:34:27.8 –> 0:34:29.73 little about the you know, 0:34:29.73 –> 0:34:31.346 the the advocacy component, 0:34:31.346 –> 0:34:34.226 and so these people have got together 0:34:34.226 –> 0:34:36.879 and act up an they engaged media. 0:34:36.88 –> 0:34:38.87 They staged protests, Anaza results.

30 0:34:38.87 –> 0:34:42.038 They were able to curb the public opinion, 0:34:42.04 –> 0:34:44.422 which then also changed the way 0:34:44.422 –> 0:34:45.61 science functions, right? 0:34:45.61 –> 0:34:47.332 And there were. 0:34:47.332 –> 0:34:51.35 Yes, because one of the big questions. 0:34:51.35 –> 0:34:53.835 Which goes back to what I was. 0:34:53.84 –> 0:34:56.334 I had mentioned Mary Lasker, Mary Lasker’s, 0:34:56.334 –> 0:34:58.868 and the 1971 War on Cancer was 0:34:58.868 –> 0:35:01.288 based on the notion that we don’t. 0:35:01.29 –> 0:35:03.065 We can’t just sit around 0:35:03.065 –> 0:35:04.84 and wait for basic research. 0:35:04.84 –> 0:35:07.311 We have to have targeted research and 0:35:07.311 –> 0:35:09.136 that’s huge policy argument about 0:35:09.136 –> 0:35:11.586 where it where does work come from. 0:35:11.59 –> 0:35:13.55 But but. 0:35:13.55 –> 0:35:16.043 At some point you have to say that we 0:35:16.043 –> 0:35:18.71 have this massive public health problem. 0:35:18.71 –> 0:35:20.648 We have to just worry about 0:35:20.648 –> 0:35:22.729 this and think about things that 0:35:22.729 –> 0:35:24.895 will make a diﬀerence in this. 0:35:24.9 –> 0:35:25.98 Anne Marie lost, 0:35:25.98 –> 0:35:28.892 we wanted to do that with cancer and 0:35:28.892 –> 0:35:31.436 it turned out it was way too early. 0:35:31.44 –> 0:35:33.498 Nobody even when in 1971 nobody 0:35:33.498 –> 0:35:34.184 even knew 0:35:34.19 –> 0:35:36.598 what caused cancer. I mean it was 0:35:36.6 –> 0:35:38.658 not. Uncle genes were not discovered. 0:35:38.66 –> 0:35:40.73 They weren’t discovered until 1976 in 0:35:40.73 –> 0:35:43.479 chickens and then in 1981 and human beings. 0:35:43.48 –> 0:35:45.856 So that was a lot of. 0:35:45.86 –> 0:35:47.888 Time passed and everybody the money

31 0:35:47.888 –> 0:35:50.631 it was was money and it did support 0:35:50.631 –> 0:35:52.617 basic research that led to those 0:35:52.688 –> 0:35:54.508 discoveries which are just now 0:35:54.508 –> 0:35:57.03 starting to lead to drugs and well 0:35:57.03 –> 0:35:58.77 the precision medicine you know. 0:35:58.77 –> 0:36:01.213 Oncology is the poster child of precision 0:36:01.213 –> 0:36:03.31 medicine nowadays right? Also the actual 0:36:03.31 –> 0:36:05.403 numbers of people who get help or 0:36:05.403 –> 0:36:07.808 are much lower than you would think 0:36:07.808 –> 0:36:09.974 about because one of the difficulties 0:36:10.041 –> 0:36:12.279 about doing a story about something 0:36:12.279 –> 0:36:14.506 like a new immunotherapy for cancer 0:36:14.506 –> 0:36:16.684 is you find somebody who was. 0:36:16.69 –> 0:36:19.03 Almost dead yesterday and is now 0:36:19.03 –> 0:36:21.289 is running the marathon and yeah, 0:36:21.29 –> 0:36:24.331 but it turns out that only 12% of 0:36:24.331 –> 0:36:25.775 people who get immunotherapy’s 0:36:25.775 –> 0:36:28.039 overall show any kind of response 0:36:28.039 –> 0:36:30.391 that I’m talking about not talking 0:36:30.391 –> 0:36:32.01 about surviving for years. 0:36:32.01 –> 0:36:34.308 I’m just any kind of response, 0:36:34.31 –> 0:36:36.22 let alone people who were. 0:36:38.28 –> 0:36:39.827 What you would call a cure it 0:36:39.827 –> 0:36:41.98 if you have go for several years 0:36:41.98 –> 0:36:43.25 without recurrence? Well, so 0:36:43.25 –> 0:36:46.234 how do you view so one of the 0:36:46.234 –> 0:36:48.618 things I’ve observed is that. 0:36:48.62 –> 0:36:50.39 More specifically in in psychiatry, 0:36:50.39 –> 0:36:52.854 my field every five to 10 years. 0:36:52.86 –> 0:36:54.535 Someone writes this paper that 0:36:54.535 –> 0:36:56.653 we are about to enter the

32 0:36:56.653 –> 0:36:58.502 Golden age of psychiatry, right? 0:36:58.502 –> 0:37:00.973 See a lot of Golden Age is 0:37:00.973 –> 0:37:02.739 a lot of goals, and 0:37:02.74 –> 0:37:05.629 then you see it in every field of medicine 0:37:05.629 –> 0:37:08.735 is a world where about we’re about there, 0:37:08.74 –> 0:37:12.148 I mean, and it’s absolutely fascinating. 0:37:12.15 –> 0:37:14.929 About how long things can take Francis 0:37:14.929 –> 0:37:18.005 Collins, who’s now the director of 0:37:18.005 –> 0:37:20.68 the National Institutes of Health? 0:37:20.68 –> 0:37:23.032 As head of the Human Genome Project 0:37:23.032 –> 0:37:24.766 discovered, the gene for cystic 0:37:24.766 –> 0:37:27.4 fibrosis in I have to look it up. 0:37:27.4 –> 0:37:28.744 I don’t have it. 0:37:28.744 –> 0:37:31.095 I thought I had, but it was, 0:37:31.095 –> 0:37:32.774 I think in the 1980s, 0:37:32.774 –> 0:37:34.12 before the Genome project. 0:37:34.12 –> 0:37:35.795 Yeah before long because yeah, 0:37:35.8 –> 0:37:38.145 in the days when it took forever, 0:37:38.15 –> 0:37:40.145 but it was just this last week 0:37:40.145 –> 0:37:42.245 that the FDA approved a gene 0:37:42.245 –> 0:37:44.195 based drug for cystic fibrosis. 0:37:44.2 –> 0:37:46.216 That seems to be truly effective. 0:37:46.22 –> 0:37:46.89 Oh, I 0:37:46.89 –> 0:37:48.23 hadn’t heard of that. 0:37:49.76 –> 0:37:52.112 King, about decades between you and it 0:37:52.112 –> 0:37:54.56 looks so exciting when you and it’s true, 0:37:54.56 –> 0:37:56.8 it was exciting to know that there 0:37:56.8 –> 0:37:59.228 was this gene. But at the time, 0:37:59.228 –> 0:38:01.063 kids with cystic fibrosis were 0:38:01.063 –> 0:38:03.194 living there be 6 or 7 you know. 0:38:03.2 –> 0:38:05.423 Now you have 40 and 50 year olds and

33 0:38:05.423 –> 0:38:08.13 it looks like they may soon have a 0:38:08.13 –> 0:38:10.24 completely normal life expectancy. So 0:38:10.24 –> 0:38:12.8 so this perennial question of the Golden Age. 0:38:12.8 –> 0:38:14.485 This is something that really 0:38:14.485 –> 0:38:16.532 fascinates me and I spend time 0:38:16.532 –> 0:38:18.876 agonizing over because a lot of it is, 0:38:18.88 –> 0:38:21.176 you know, science is based on this. 0:38:21.18 –> 0:38:22.32 Idea of of grants right? 0:38:22.32 –> 0:38:24.128 If you want to be an academic scientist, 0:38:24.13 –> 0:38:25.946 you write a grant for five years, right? 0:38:25.946 –> 0:38:27.754 And you say I’m going to do this. 0:38:27.76 –> 0:38:29.244 That and the other an at the 0:38:29.244 –> 0:38:32.12 end of five years, you know. 0:38:32.12 –> 0:38:34.598 Reflective scientists will be like did 0:38:34.598 –> 0:38:36.948 I actually accomplish those things and 0:38:36.948 –> 0:38:39.139 something that you know in your book 0:38:39.139 –> 0:38:41.74 is how after there is this increased 0:38:41.74 –> 0:38:44.291 funding for breast cancer or the NCI, 0:38:44.291 –> 0:38:46.076 the National Cancer Institute had 0:38:46.076 –> 0:38:48.028 their budget tripled or doubled. 0:38:48.03 –> 0:38:51.36 His order order of magnitude all of a sudden. 0:38:51.36 –> 0:38:53.526 All these scientists who were basic 0:38:53.526 –> 0:38:55.413 scientists began to be interested 0:38:55.413 –> 0:38:56.909 in a few sentences. 0:38:56.91 –> 0:38:59.13 At the end of their granite 0:38:59.13 –> 0:39:00.61 studying cancer right right? 0:39:00.61 –> 0:39:00.98 And 0:39:00.98 –> 0:39:02.97 you can do it, yeah? 0:39:02.97 –> 0:39:05.328 Is pretty easy as you know, 0:39:05.33 –> 0:39:08.867 as a scientist that to write those words in, 0:39:08.87 –> 0:39:10.645 because almost any basic science

34 0:39:10.645 –> 0:39:13.774 can be said to be relevant to the 0:39:13.774 –> 0:39:15.904 cancer problem because the cancer 0:39:15.904 –> 0:39:18.3 problem is how cells work, right? 0:39:18.3 –> 0:39:21.83 Yes, how does the body where? How does the 0:39:21.83 –> 0:39:23.864 body work and therefore you can 0:39:23.864 –> 0:39:26.16 make it an it’s interesting, 0:39:26.16 –> 0:39:28.125 the immuno therapy stuﬀ came 0:39:28.125 –> 0:39:30.09 from 2 lines of research. 0:39:30.09 –> 0:39:32.59 One was just really basic 0:39:32.59 –> 0:39:34.59 research immunology and mice. 0:39:34.59 –> 0:39:35.802 By James Allison. 0:39:35.802 –> 0:39:38.226 When when he was at Berkeley, 0:39:38.23 –> 0:39:41.45 now he’s at MD Anderson an the 0:39:41.45 –> 0:39:44.669 the other came from a discovery. 0:39:44.67 –> 0:39:47.13 That was made very, very applied. 0:39:47.13 –> 0:39:49.972 An HIV discovery that when the HIV 0:39:49.972 –> 0:39:52.894 attacks the type of word but white 0:39:52.894 –> 0:39:55.33 blood cells called CD four cells. 0:39:55.33 –> 0:39:57.38 It doesn’t just attach to 0:39:57.38 –> 0:39:59.43 11 protein on the surface, 0:39:59.43 –> 0:40:00.368 it attached. 0:40:00.368 –> 0:40:03.651 To a coreceptor an there was a 0:40:03.651 –> 0:40:06.896 study of sex workers female sex 0:40:06.896 –> 0:40:10.15 workers in Nairobi which found that. 0:40:12.17 –> 0:40:13.965 A very small percentage less 0:40:13.965 –> 0:40:16.22 than one by far of them, 0:40:16.22 –> 0:40:18.045 had unprotected sex with thousands 0:40:18.045 –> 0:40:20.657 of men who were infected and it 0:40:20.657 –> 0:40:22.467 never got the diseases themselves. 0:40:22.47 –> 0:40:24.717 And it turned out that they had 0:40:24.717 –> 0:40:27.26 a defect in this coreceptor Ann.

35 0:40:27.26 –> 0:40:29.732 This is the Co receptor that makes up 0:40:29.732 –> 0:40:32.779 what the basis for immunotherapy for cancer. 0:40:32.78 –> 0:40:35.012 Now we have these two 2 0:40:35.012 –> 0:40:36.83 lines of research that say 0:40:36.83 –> 0:40:38.302 you never know, right? 0:40:38.302 –> 0:40:39.768 Yeah, exactly unknown unknown. 0:40:39.77 –> 0:40:41.39 Yeah you were working 0:40:41.39 –> 0:40:43.82 with mice in a lab about. 0:40:43.82 –> 0:40:46.524 Immunology is is one thing and but also 0:40:46.524 –> 0:40:48.677 studying Kenyan sex workers is another. 0:40:48.68 –> 0:40:51.158 Another thing is why is he why 0:40:51.158 –> 0:40:52.84 somebody bothering to do this? 0:40:52.84 –> 0:40:55.115 Well it turns out that you know 0:40:55.115 –> 0:40:57.349 in the world one human being, 0:40:57.35 –> 0:40:59.126 the Berlin patient has been cured 0:40:59.126 –> 0:41:01.382 of HIV and it was because he 0:41:01.382 –> 0:41:03.052 got a transplant from somebody 0:41:03.052 –> 0:41:05.018 who had this defective receptor 0:41:05.018 –> 0:41:07.068 as a treatment for leukemia. 0:41:07.07 –> 0:41:09.499 So he is now cured of HIV. 0:41:09.5 –> 0:41:11.581 Kind of incidentally yeah I saw 0:41:11.581 –> 0:41:12.995 that but unfortunately it’s 0:41:12.995 –> 0:41:14.77 not something you want to. 0:41:14.77 –> 0:41:17.068 Do is routinely, for you know, 0:41:17.07 –> 0:41:19.362 the 35 million people in the 0:41:19.362 –> 0:41:21.28 world who are moving with 0:41:21.28 –> 0:41:23.2 HIV, but my head well. 0:41:23.2 –> 0:41:25.112 So yes, I I fully. 0:41:25.112 –> 0:41:26.64 I fully accept that. 0:41:26.64 –> 0:41:28.172 You know serendipity is 0:41:28.172 –> 0:41:30.087 a large part of science.

36 0:41:30.09 –> 0:41:32.322 And embracing these serendipitous 0:41:32.322 –> 0:41:34.554 discoveries often leads to. 0:41:34.56 –> 0:41:37.146 Wonderful things like the unknown unknown. 0:41:37.15 –> 0:41:40.606 So yeah, there’s a lot of potential there. 0:41:40.61 –> 0:41:43.058 However, one of the things that 0:41:43.058 –> 0:41:46.042 makes me anxious is the selling of 0:41:46.042 –> 0:41:49.01 science in a way that isn’t completely 0:41:49.09 –> 0:41:51.41 driven by the science itself. 0:41:51.41 –> 0:41:52.55 O for example, 0:41:52.55 –> 0:41:55.708 the the idea of selling your work is 0:41:55.708 –> 0:41:58.222 being curated for a speciﬁc disease 0:41:58.222 –> 0:42:00.91 when it’s not directly related. 0:42:00.91 –> 0:42:03.658 You know there is some salesmanship 0:42:03.658 –> 0:42:04.574 in grantsmanship. 0:42:04.58 –> 0:42:07.124 And you know, in order to get funded, 0:42:07.13 –> 0:42:09.05 you have to get people excited. 0:42:09.05 –> 0:42:10.64 However, this Golden age question. 0:42:15.46 –> 0:42:16.399 Sorry, go ahead 0:42:16.4 –> 0:42:18.29 and now the goal it well. 0:42:18.29 –> 0:42:20.558 One of the things that happens if you talk 0:42:20.558 –> 0:42:22.314 about there are lobbyists in Washington 0:42:22.314 –> 0:42:24.205 who work on behalf of organizations 0:42:24.205 –> 0:42:26.539 like the American Association for the 0:42:26.539 –> 0:42:29.408 Advancement of Science or the American 0:42:29.408 –> 0:42:31.543 Association of Universities. Anne. 0:42:31.543 –> 0:42:35.44 The way that they have ways of doing it, 0:42:35.44 –> 0:42:37.744 which is they tie it all it gets 0:42:37.744 –> 0:42:39.929 tide up with other social service 0:42:39.929 –> 0:42:43.112 programs and as a result it lifts the 0:42:43.112 –> 0:42:45.548 tide and then then then scientists. 0:42:45.55 –> 0:42:48.902 Add places like the NIH or the National

37 0:42:48.902 –> 0:42:51.403 Science Foundation can make the decision 0:42:51.403 –> 0:42:54.08 about what where the money should go, 0:42:54.08 –> 0:42:56.782 and it doesn’t just go to silly 0:42:56.782 –> 0:42:59.69 projects that are designed to try to 0:42:59.69 –> 0:43:02.192 cure diseases kind of offbeat way, 0:43:02.2 –> 0:43:05.95 but a lot of stuff. 0:43:05.95 –> 0:43:07.966 As you know, does get published. 0:43:07.97 –> 0:43:09.314 It never gets replicated, 0:43:09.314 –> 0:43:11.338 replicated or reproduced or refer to 0:43:11.34 –> 0:43:14.036 and just goes off in the deep end, 0:43:14.04 –> 0:43:16.632 and there’s a lot of concern about that 0:43:16.632 –> 0:43:19.316 and exactly how you steer this gigantic 0:43:19.316 –> 0:43:21.631 ship and the scientific enterprise is 0:43:21.631 –> 0:43:23.863 just growing so rapidly it if you look 0:43:23.863 –> 0:43:26.509 at the charts of the number of journals, 0:43:26.51 –> 0:43:28.532 the number of people working in 0:43:28.532 –> 0:43:29.88 science and everything else. 0:43:29.88 –> 0:43:32.8 So any argument that we’re in an age 0:43:32.8 –> 0:43:35.626 that’s not a Golden age where we are. 0:43:35.63 –> 0:43:37.148 Where the public doesn’t support size. 0:43:37.15 –> 0:43:38.42 I don’t buy into that, 0:43:38.42 –> 0:43:39.44 only we have we 0:43:39.44 –> 0:43:40.46 have. So you think 0:43:40.46 –> 0:43:41.978 this is the Golden age thing? 0:43:41.98 –> 0:43:43.32 Yeah, we’re definitely the 0:43:43.32 –> 0:43:44.995 goal of the things that. 0:43:45 –> 0:43:47.484 I hear about that are going on on this 0:43:47.484 –> 0:43:49.635 campus and others and other institutes 0:43:49.635 –> 0:43:51.892 around the country are just astounding 0:43:51.892 –> 0:43:54.948 because the tools are getting so much better. 0:43:54.95 –> 0:43:57.344 The Genome Project is the obvious one.

38 0:43:57.35 –> 0:44:00.437 You know. It used to take months and months. 0:44:00.44 –> 0:44:04.75 I mean I remember. The. 0:44:04.75 –> 0:44:07.27 There aren’t very many single. 0:44:07.27 –> 0:44:10.766 Based as you know, the single gene disease 0:44:10.766 –> 0:44:14.416 is caused by a defect in one gene or mute. 0:44:14.42 –> 0:44:16.4 An alteration in one gene, 0:44:16.4 –> 0:44:19.179 but the ﬁrst one that we discovered 0:44:19.179 –> 0:44:20.37 was Huntington’s disease, 0:44:20.37 –> 0:44:23.19 which was in 1984. 0:44:23.19 –> 0:44:25.269 And it took them until 1994 to 0:44:25.269 –> 0:44:26.883 actually sequence that gene because 0:44:26.883 –> 0:44:28.528 the technology was so crude. 0:44:28.53 –> 0:44:30.1 Now. Now if somebody knew 0:44:30.1 –> 0:44:31.67 the location of that gene, 0:44:31.67 –> 0:44:33.24 they could hear it, Yale, 0:44:33.24 –> 0:44:34.81 it would put it outside. 0:44:34.81 –> 0:44:37.95 They could do it in a much even faster way, 0:44:37.95 –> 0:44:40.569 but usually what they do is they put it 0:44:40.569 –> 0:44:42.92 outside their door in a bucket like you 0:44:42.92 –> 0:44:45.249 see outside of your doctors oﬃce for 0:44:45.249 –> 0:44:47.704 blood and urine samples is picked up. 0:44:47.704 –> 0:44:50.71 It’s taken to a gene sequencing and they get 0:44:50.784 –> 0:44:53.131 it back in the morning on their computer. 0:44:53.131 –> 0:44:56.078 And they can compare it to every 0:44:56.078 –> 0:44:58.374 known gene sequence in every 0:44:58.374 –> 0:45:00.659 animal creature on Earth an. 0:45:00.66 –> 0:45:01.24 At best, 0:45:01.24 –> 0:45:02.392 pretty Golden age. Yeah, 0:45:02.392 –> 0:45:04.12 that’s pretty Golden age and and 0:45:04.12 –> 0:45:05.56 what’s happening now is one 0:45:05.56 –> 0:45:07 of the biggest problems is

39 0:45:07.062 –> 0:45:08.718 there’s so much data coming in. 0:45:08.72 –> 0:45:11.024 How do you deal with all the data? 0:45:11.03 –> 0:45:12.47 There’s so much information? Well, 0:45:12.47 –> 0:45:14.479 what are your thoughts on neuroscience then? 0:45:14.48 –> 0:45:16.208 Like how do you view that? 0:45:16.21 –> 0:45:18.226 Our understanding of the brain in relation 0:45:18.23 –> 0:45:20.526 to these? Otherwise I think we have a 0:45:20.53 –> 0:45:22.928 long way to go and understanding science. 0:45:22.928 –> 0:45:27.468 What makes. It is very interesting if you. 0:45:27.47 –> 0:45:30.578 Think about evolution and Richard Dawkins 0:45:30.578 –> 0:45:34.689 who’s one of my favorite writers of 0:45:34.689 –> 0:45:37.929 all these brilliant actually written. 0:45:37.93 –> 0:45:40.946 He but. And he he gets pounced on 0:45:40.946 –> 0:45:44.369 all the time by the religious right, 0:45:44.37 –> 0:45:47.09 because of he thinks that religion is a 0:45:47.09 –> 0:45:49.748 meme term that he invented, but it’s. 0:45:49.748 –> 0:45:52.62 But it’s a meme is a conscious thing. 0:45:52.62 –> 0:45:55.084 It’s not a gene and he and he 0:45:55.084 –> 0:45:57.333 constantly says that we’ve developed a 0:45:57.333 –> 0:46:00.16 consciousness we because we have a brain. 0:46:00.16 –> 0:46:01.592 It came from evolution. 0:46:01.592 –> 0:46:03.382 But we don’t understand it. 0:46:03.39 –> 0:46:05.185 We don’t have the mechanism 0:46:05.185 –> 0:46:06.98 to understand our own brains. 0:46:06.98 –> 0:46:09.412 And as an example of why everything is 0:46:09.412 –> 0:46:12.009 not driven by Darwinian natural selection, 0:46:12.01 –> 0:46:14.686 he says, well, we wouldn’t have. 0:46:14.69 –> 0:46:16.11 Option one practice contraception 0:46:16.11 –> 0:46:18.559 if we wanted to just increase our 0:46:18.559 –> 0:46:19.829 our genes in the world. 0:46:19.83 –> 0:46:21.75 Well so so I think his

40 0:46:21.75 –> 0:46:23.01 arguments pretty sound though. 0:46:23.01 –> 0:46:25.603 So like why would we suppose that our 0:46:25.603 –> 0:46:27.529 brains evolved to understand the brain? 0:46:27.53 –> 0:46:29.776 No, I don’t think we have the 0:46:29.776 –> 0:46:31.7 capacity to do that. So then. 0:46:31.7 –> 0:46:34.068 So then what direction like in terms of 0:46:34.068 –> 0:46:36.2 the Golden age of neuroscience then. 0:46:36.2 –> 0:46:38.468 So so there have been many stories 0:46:38.468 –> 0:46:40.688 purporting that this decade of the brain, 0:46:40.69 –> 0:46:42.616 for example, right like you know, 0:46:42.62 –> 0:46:45.83 we’re going to devote a lot of money to this, 0:46:45.83 –> 0:46:47.49 like we did with the. 0:46:47.49 –> 0:46:49.807 Human genome and in 10 years will 0:46:49.807 –> 0:46:51.79 shake her hand and what happened? 0:46:51.79 –> 0:46:53.114 No, not much right. 0:46:53.114 –> 0:46:54.438 There was a decade 0:46:54.44 –> 0:46:56.848 of the brain. Sounds like a good idea 0:46:56.848 –> 0:46:59.74 and I’m sure they pay for decent science. 0:46:59.74 –> 0:47:01.72 I’m not up on the literature 0:47:01.72 –> 0:47:04.128 on that. I don’t know what to tell 0:47:04.128 –> 0:47:06.687 ya to say that that we learned. 0:47:06.69 –> 0:47:08.67 You know nothing is obviously false. 0:47:08.67 –> 0:47:11.318 I mean we know wealth of information about 0:47:11.318 –> 0:47:13.304 the brain, like how neurons function, 0:47:13.304 –> 0:47:15.704 how they organized you, know sub circuits 0:47:15.704 –> 0:47:17.852 and circuits and networks and systems. 0:47:17.86 –> 0:47:20.932 Throughout the brain, but are we able to 0:47:20.932 –> 0:47:23.818 bring that to the level of healthcare? 0:47:23.82 –> 0:47:25.408 Not quite yet right? 0:47:25.408 –> 0:47:27.79 And so that’s the question then, 0:47:27.79 –> 0:47:30.958 is like something that I’ve been musing over.

41 0:47:30.96 –> 0:47:32.95 Is all of these movements. 0:47:32.95 –> 0:47:36.568 I hope that I don’t mean that in a 0:47:36.568 –> 0:47:39.296 derogatory way to say like the AIDS. 0:47:39.3 –> 0:47:42.39 Advocates were like a movement, but I don’t. 0:47:42.39 –> 0:47:44.61 I don’t know another word to 0:47:44.61 –> 0:47:46.837 describe that like that movement. 0:47:46.84 –> 0:47:48.145 The cancer movement, 0:47:48.145 –> 0:47:50.32 specifically the breast cancer movement. 0:47:50.32 –> 0:47:53.33 These people were able to create a 0:47:53.33 –> 0:47:56.249 lot of enthusiasm which then trickled 0:47:56.249 –> 0:47:58.301 into the scientific enterprise 0:47:58.301 –> 0:48:00.839 in the form of funding, 0:48:00.84 –> 0:48:03.23 which then allows treatments to 0:48:03.23 –> 0:48:05.62 eventually be brought to market. 0:48:05.62 –> 0:48:07.528 Which one is lucky? 0:48:07.53 –> 0:48:08.482 I mean, 0:48:08.482 –> 0:48:09.92 there’s feel like, 0:48:09.92 –> 0:48:12.782 yeah, but it also allows the 0:48:12.782 –> 0:48:13.736 scientific understanding. 0:48:13.74 –> 0:48:17.52 Sometimes that doesn’t wait to treatments. 0:48:17.52 –> 0:48:19.266 And it’s not a bad thing. 0:48:19.27 –> 0:48:21.734 I mean, and there still is support 0:48:21.734 –> 0:48:23.34 despite everything else for the. 0:48:23.34 –> 0:48:27.43 Like the wonderful things that say, 0:48:27.43 –> 0:48:30.07 Carl Zimmer writes about about the 0:48:30.07 –> 0:48:32.97 interaction of a lichen and fungus and 0:48:32.97 –> 0:48:36.38 sure or the which is terrifying. By the 0:48:36.38 –> 0:48:40.01 way they are. Or or or 0:48:40.01 –> 0:48:42.179 does this interest that we all have in in 0:48:42.179 –> 0:48:44.509 the origin of human population migrations? 0:48:44.51 –> 0:48:46.547 That’s not going to. That probably is

42 0:48:46.547 –> 0:48:48.625 not going to tell us anything that’s 0:48:48.625 –> 0:48:50.81 going to be useful in the clinic, 0:48:50.81 –> 0:48:53.386 but I think it should be supported not 0:48:53.386 –> 0:48:55.606 just because I like to read about it, 0:48:55.61 –> 0:48:57.11 but I think, you know, 0:48:57.11 –> 0:48:58.61 tells us more about who 0:48:58.61 –> 0:49:00.11 we are and it’s absolutely 0:49:00.11 –> 0:49:01.31 fascinating. So any knowledge 0:49:01.31 –> 0:49:03.075 is good knowledge, then yeah, well, 0:49:03.075 –> 0:49:04.93 any yeah? Any knowledge that is not 0:49:04.93 –> 0:49:07.009 used for destructive purposes as good 0:49:07.01 –> 0:49:08.21 knowledge? Napalm? It’s not 0:49:08.21 –> 0:49:09.71 good. No, I don’t think. 0:49:09.82 –> 0:49:11.788 I don’t think Napalm is good 0:49:11.788 –> 0:49:12.772 under any circumstances, 0:49:12.78 –> 0:49:16.07 and it goes for a lot of other other things. 0:49:16.07 –> 0:49:18.71 But if you’re thinking about. 0:49:18.71 –> 0:49:21.599 The scientiﬁc enterprise. 0:49:21.6 –> 0:49:24.488 Yeah, I get back to these Pew surveys. 0:49:24.49 –> 0:49:27.378 Science has never been held in higher regard. 0:49:27.38 –> 0:49:30.481 Let me people there are these awful 0:49:30.481 –> 0:49:33.12 things that are going on like. 0:49:33.12 –> 0:49:34.544 Cuts in environmental regulations 0:49:34.544 –> 0:49:36.68 that are based on pseudoscience that, 0:49:36.68 –> 0:49:39.875 but a lot of that is a political decision. 0:49:39.88 –> 0:49:42.352 Are we willing to be like India and 0:49:42.352 –> 0:49:44.899 China and breed really horrible air so 0:49:44.899 –> 0:49:47.72 that some people can make more proﬁts? 0:49:47.72 –> 0:49:50.369 Or are we? 0:49:50.37 –> 0:49:52.908 Those are political ideas and the 0:49:52.908 –> 0:49:55.503 other the other thing that keeps

43 0:49:55.503 –> 0:49:58.373 coming that I keep thinking about is. 0:49:58.38 –> 0:50:00.78 This idea of the. 0:50:00.78 –> 0:50:04.82 Global warming and climate change are so. 0:50:04.82 –> 0:50:07.214 Threatening that are we wasting our time 0:50:07.214 –> 0:50:09.069 thinking about almost anything else? 0:50:09.07 –> 0:50:11.894 And there are people that make that argument. 0:50:11.9 –> 0:50:14.378 Jonathan Franzen had a very good piece. 0:50:14.38 –> 0:50:16.704 And then in The New Yorker a 0:50:16.704 –> 0:50:18.63 few months ago about that, 0:50:18.63 –> 0:50:21.16 that it’s so hopeless that. 0:50:21.16 –> 0:50:23.712 So we we we go on as if our children our 0:50:23.712 –> 0:50:26.246 grandchildren are going to have decent lives. 0:50:26.25 –> 0:50:27.47 Whenever I was talking about 0:50:27.47 –> 0:50:28.69 the ﬁnancial aspects of my 0:50:28.737 –> 0:50:30.217 generation versus your generation, 0:50:30.22 –> 0:50:32.026 but think about what it could be 0:50:32.026 –> 0:50:34.18 like for our kids and our grandkids. 0:50:34.18 –> 0:50:36.203 If if the world really goes to 0:50:36.203 –> 0:50:38.677 hell in the way it seems to be in 0:50:38.677 –> 0:50:41.346 a lot of people think it will be 0:50:41.346 –> 0:50:42.528 because of reinforcing. 0:50:42.53 –> 0:50:45.232 Feedbacks that are just getting worse and 0:50:45.232 –> 0:50:47.712 worse and nobody is doing anything about 0:50:47.712 –> 0:50:50.59 it at any kind of scale that it could. 0:50:50.59 –> 0:50:52.9 Matter and so maybe you know you 0:50:52.9 –> 0:50:55.434 thinking about the brain or me talking 0:50:55.434 –> 0:50:57.648 about breast cancer activism for HIV, 0:50:57.65 –> 0:50:59.769 AIDS, or even trying to illuminate. 0:50:59.769 –> 0:51:00.828 And it’s horrible. 0:51:00.83 –> 0:51:02.948 Probably you know, tuberculosis or HIV, 0:51:02.95 –> 0:51:05.062 aids and all these other terrible

44 0:51:05.062 –> 0:51:06.118 global health problems. 0:51:06.12 –> 0:51:08.256 But all that could be meaningless 0:51:08.256 –> 0:51:11.18 in a big hurry if if climate change 0:51:11.18 –> 0:51:13.721 gets so bad that there’s no food 0:51:13.721 –> 0:51:16.353 and there’s a lack of water and all 0:51:16.36 –> 0:51:20.11 that, well, so so this is again an area that. 0:51:20.11 –> 0:51:22.56 You know you see the science, right? 0:51:22.56 –> 0:51:25.01 The science is fairly clear and robust. 0:51:25.01 –> 0:51:27.014 I mean, there are these models 0:51:27.014 –> 0:51:29.209 that have been known for decades, 0:51:29.21 –> 0:51:30.96 and there are advocacy groups 0:51:30.96 –> 0:51:32.36 like there’s a movement. 0:51:32.36 –> 0:51:34.11 You know that it’s getting 0:51:34.11 –> 0:51:35.51 more popular with young 0:51:35.51 –> 0:51:38.31 people, which is good. Which is good. But 0:51:38.31 –> 0:51:40.242 so, like when, how do you 0:51:40.242 –> 0:51:42.16 view a critical mass forming? 0:51:42.16 –> 0:51:44.96 So at what point? I don’t know. This 0:51:44.96 –> 0:51:47.76 is not something that I’ve been involved in. 0:51:47.76 –> 0:51:51.078 Sometimes I feel like I should be. 0:51:51.08 –> 0:51:53.236 You know involved in it and you 0:51:53.236 –> 0:51:55.386 see things like Jane Fonda getting 0:51:55.386 –> 0:51:57.316 arrested every Friday along with 0:51:57.316 –> 0:51:59.54 a bunch of other celebrities. 0:51:59.54 –> 0:52:02.116 Now on the steps of the Capitol. 0:52:02.12 –> 0:52:04.696 Maybe that will call attention to it, 0:52:04.7 –> 0:52:07.059 but it’s very hard to wrap your 0:52:07.059 –> 0:52:09.758 head around how bad it is an 0:52:09.758 –> 0:52:11.768 particularly because you’ve got just 0:52:11.768 –> 0:52:14.257 become a religion to be against it. 0:52:14.26 –> 0:52:15.732 For certain political parties.

45 0:52:15.732 –> 0:52:17.572 So people are much more. 0:52:19.68 –> 0:52:21.41 Aligned to disbelieve it even, 0:52:21.41 –> 0:52:23.486 even though the evidence is stronger. 0:52:23.49 –> 0:52:25.597 And also it’s happening over a time 0:52:25.597 –> 0:52:27.978 frame that we don’t quite understand. 0:52:27.98 –> 0:52:30.008 Have a new treatment for cystic 0:52:30.008 –> 0:52:31.79 ﬁbrosis or cancer comes along. 0:52:31.79 –> 0:52:33.8 Yeah yesterday it wasn’t here today 0:52:33.8 –> 0:52:36.289 is here and we suddenly see it. 0:52:36.29 –> 0:52:37.328 This is given 0:52:37.33 –> 0:52:40.44 to patients better and in some way. But this 0:52:40.44 –> 0:52:44 doesn’t work that way. Anne. 0:52:44 –> 0:52:46.25 It could be just awful an I I don’t 0:52:46.25 –> 0:52:48.481 know if there are people here an 0:52:48.481 –> 0:52:50.558 elsewhere here yell and elsewhere who 0:52:50.558 –> 0:52:53.134 work at the idea of communicating this. 0:52:53.14 –> 0:52:55.226 You know, how do you tell people 0:52:55.226 –> 0:52:57.163 this is such a serious problem 0:52:57.163 –> 0:52:59.431 that we have to worry about it? 0:52:59.44 –> 0:53:01.288 I remember even a few one of 0:53:01.288 –> 0:53:03.259 the few times we were talking 0:53:03.259 –> 0:53:05.109 bout good reactions to stories. 0:53:05.11 –> 0:53:07.126 I did it with the one time 0:53:07.126 –> 0:53:09.518 I got a lot of hate Mail. 0:53:09.52 –> 0:53:12.04 And in those days it was just Mail. 0:53:12.04 –> 0:53:13.924 It was an email or social 0:53:13.924 –> 0:53:16.308 media when I did a story about. 0:53:16.31 –> 0:53:16.912 Global warming, 0:53:16.912 –> 0:53:18.718 one of the ﬁrst stories when 0:53:18.718 –> 0:53:20.748 I was starting to become more 0:53:20.748 –> 0:53:22.75 public issue what year is that?

46 0:53:22.75 –> 0:53:24.683 Oh, is in the 80s eighties. 0:53:24.683 –> 0:53:26.618 Brian Johansson came out and but 0:53:26.618 –> 0:53:28.55 it didn’t phase and people can’t. 0:53:28.55 –> 0:53:29.387 You know, then, 0:53:29.387 –> 0:53:31.34 when it’s really hot on the East 0:53:31.401 –> 0:53:33.376 Coast and everybody in Washington, 0:53:33.38 –> 0:53:34.985 New York’s miserable and or 0:53:34.985 –> 0:53:36.269 there’s a power outage. 0:53:36.27 –> 0:53:37.88 Or there’s a big hurricane. 0:53:37.88 –> 0:53:39.49 Now people are starting to 0:53:39.49 –> 0:53:40.778 accept the severe weather. 0:53:40.78 –> 0:53:43.332 Is is part of global climate change and 0:53:43.332 –> 0:53:45.607 that wasn’t accepted for a long time. 0:53:45.61 –> 0:53:47.56 Well, so so this is. 0:53:47.56 –> 0:53:50.146 One of my editors at Scientiﬁc 0:53:50.146 –> 0:53:51.444 American, Mike Lemonick, 0:53:51.444 –> 0:53:54.036 who had interviewed for this podcast. 0:53:54.04 –> 0:53:56.146 He and I had a discussion 0:53:56.146 –> 0:53:58.208 about the impact of science 0:53:58.208 –> 0:54:00.516 journalism on science policy, 0:54:00.52 –> 0:54:03.145 and so I’m curious if you feel 0:54:03.145 –> 0:54:05.696 like your journalism in AIDS and 0:54:05.696 –> 0:54:07.941 cancer treatments and you covered 0:54:07.941 –> 0:54:10.459 Alzheimer’s and Human Genome project, 0:54:10.46 –> 0:54:13.356 do you feel like that has had an 0:54:13.356 –> 0:54:16.07 aﬀect in sculpting policy? I 0:54:16.07 –> 0:54:17.85 think not mine necessarily, 0:54:17.85 –> 0:54:19.63 but overall it does. 0:54:19.63 –> 0:54:21.435 I think that awareness does 0:54:21.435 –> 0:54:22.879 help people appreciate where 0:54:22.879 –> 0:54:24.59 their tax dollars are going,

47 0:54:24.59 –> 0:54:28.046 but there and that’s been part of perhaps 0:54:28.046 –> 0:54:31.318 the reason that there was not a lot of. 0:54:31.32 –> 0:54:33.27 Objection to it science is 0:54:33.27 –> 0:54:34.83 always done pretty well. 0:54:34.83 –> 0:54:37.364 I’d get has its ups and downs 0:54:37.364 –> 0:54:39.361 and you mentioned before the 0:54:39.361 –> 0:54:41.845 when the NIH doubled its budget, 0:54:41.85 –> 0:54:43.716 which was a huge mistake that 0:54:43.716 –> 0:54:46.166 was made during the Clinton Bill 0:54:46.166 –> 0:54:47.7 Clinton administration, the. 0:54:49.77 –> 0:54:51.246 They doubled the budget, 0:54:51.246 –> 0:54:53.46 but then they didn’t fall through, 0:54:53.46 –> 0:54:55.677 so there’s all these graduate students 0:54:55.677 –> 0:54:57.89 and postdocs who suddenly given fell 0:54:57.89 –> 0:55:00.026 off a Cliff like doubling the 0:55:00.026 –> 0:55:01.95 enrollment in medical school without 0:55:01.95 –> 0:55:03.422 doubling residency right exactly. 0:55:03.422 –> 0:55:06.008 Yeah, it was a bad idea, yeah? 0:55:06.008 –> 0:55:08.952 But then again, there’s a big tendency to. 0:55:08.96 –> 0:55:11.156 If somebody puts money on the 0:55:11.156 –> 0:55:13.79 table to take it and not say 0:55:13.79 –> 0:55:15.962 we’re not going to take that. 0:55:15.97 –> 0:55:18.178 But but those stories are satisfying. 0:55:18.18 –> 0:55:19.708 I enjoy reading about. 0:55:19.708 –> 0:55:22.694 Science or and I enjoy just like I 0:55:22.694 –> 0:55:25.142 enjoy a good play or a movie that 0:55:25.218 –> 0:55:27.588 has nothing to do with science. 0:55:27.59 –> 0:55:29.498 It’s part of the human experience 0:55:29.498 –> 0:55:32.394 and I think that it makes people feel 0:55:32.394 –> 0:55:34.339 satisfied to get good information. 0:55:34.34 –> 0:55:35.76 Well, you certainly made

48 0:55:35.76 –> 0:55:37.89 thousands of millions of people satisfied. 0:55:37.89 –> 0:55:40.648 Flickering through the years and I guess 0:55:40.648 –> 0:55:43.206 we’re actually running a little low on time. 0:55:43.21 –> 0:55:45.534 I don’t want you to be late 0:55:45.534 –> 0:55:48.91 for your new class, OK? 0:55:48.91 –> 0:55:51.459 But we are OK. We are we OK? 0:55:51.459 –> 0:55:54.33 Yeah, I think we have 5 minutes 5 minutes. 0:55:54.33 –> 0:55:56.89 OK, I use magic that out about time, 0:55:56.89 –> 0:55:59.095 but you know, just in the last 0:55:59.095 –> 0:56:01.028 five minutes here I’m like what? 0:56:01.03 –> 0:56:02.545 Where do you see science 0:56:02.545 –> 0:56:04.54 journalism an going in the future? 0:56:04.54 –> 0:56:07.1 I because I have this sense that science 0:56:07.1 –> 0:56:09.219 is becoming more and more complex and 0:56:09.219 –> 0:56:11.56 to be able to report about science, 0:56:11.56 –> 0:56:13.474 you’re going to have to become 0:56:13.474 –> 0:56:14.75 more and more sophisticated. 0:56:14.75 –> 0:56:16.976 Like for example, you you had a, 0:56:16.98 –> 0:56:20.25 you know, a whole leg and not just a shoe. 0:56:20.25 –> 0:56:22.483 Because you had a lot of scientific 0:56:22.483 –> 0:56:25.168 training and so that gave you a springboard 0:56:25.168 –> 0:56:27.58 into the world of science journalism. 0:56:27.58 –> 0:56:30.084 So how do you feel the next generation 0:56:30.084 –> 0:56:32.118 of science journalists are going 0:56:32.12 –> 0:56:34.208 to feel very optimistic about it? 0:56:34.21 –> 0:56:36.93 Because like the stuff that you do in 0:56:36.93 –> 0:56:39.078 Scientific American and all the good 0:56:39.078 –> 0:56:41.19 stuff that’s in National Geographic sites, 0:56:41.19 –> 0:56:43.302 and there, there is an enormous 0:56:43.302 –> 0:56:45.379 amount of good information out there. 0:56:45.38 –> 0:56:47.125 And there are certain percentage

49 0:56:47.125 –> 0:56:48.87 of people who seek it. 0:56:48.87 –> 0:56:51.246 The big problems are that a lot of 0:56:51.246 –> 0:56:53.054 stuff gets trivialized, particularly. 0:56:53.054 –> 0:56:54.43 Nutritional Epidemiology, you know, 0:56:54.43 –> 0:56:56.558 I can promise you that they’ll in 0:56:56.558 –> 0:56:58.226 February there will be stories 0:56:58.226 –> 0:56:59.971 that just before Valentine’s Day 0:56:59.971 –> 0:57:01.828 that chocolate is good for you. 0:57:03.25 –> 0:57:05.326 Yeah this and wanted by Hershey. 0:57:05.33 –> 0:57:07.4 Sponsored by you know somebody will 0:57:07.4 –> 0:57:09.929 do is to study of 17 people and find 0:57:09.929 –> 0:57:12.25 out that there’s an antioxidant. 0:57:12.25 –> 0:57:15.434 Chocolate of course you have to eat so 0:57:15.434 –> 0:57:19.177 much of the chocolate you gain 10 pounds. 0:57:19.18 –> 0:57:23.317 But the and those things are constant. 0:57:27.3 –> 0:57:28.584 Uh, with evergreens, 0:57:28.584 –> 0:57:30.724 they think they’re constantly showing 0:57:30.724 –> 0:57:33.358 up on the morning talk shows like 0:57:33.358 –> 0:57:35.527 the Today Show and Good Morning 0:57:35.527 –> 0:57:37.879 America and the CBS Morning show. 0:57:37.88 –> 0:57:40.238 The people are all whole another. 0:57:40.24 –> 0:57:44.929 John Oliver did a great spot on this on. 0:57:44.93 –> 0:57:48.136 John Oliver did a very good spot 0:57:48.136 –> 0:57:51 about science, journalism and. 0:57:51 –> 0:57:53.114 It in the whole lot of stuff 0:57:53.114 –> 0:57:55.522 gets blown on it, blown up. 0:57:55.522 –> 0:57:57.34 Out of proportion. 0:57:57.34 –> 0:58:00.98 And it’s not just. 0:58:00.98 –> 0:58:02.93 These small studies get a lot 0:58:02.93 –> 0:58:04.553 of attention because they come 0:58:04.553 –> 0:58:06.113 to a result that people want

50 0:58:06.113 –> 0:58:08.08 to hear or it scares people or 0:58:08.08 –> 0:58:09.264 whatever it takes to. 0:58:09.264 –> 0:58:10.744 I love the wine study. 0:58:10.75 –> 0:58:12.52 Yeah, one drink two to three 0:58:12.52 –> 0:58:14 glasses of wine. Your heart. 0:58:14 –> 0:58:15.662 Well yeah, right and under the 0:58:15.662 –> 0:58:17.26 guise Sinclair it at Harvard, 0:58:17.26 –> 0:58:18.91 David Sinclair has been fortunate 0:58:18.91 –> 0:58:20.56 company to try supposedly distills 0:58:20.616 –> 0:58:22.485 the antioxidant from red wine into a 0:58:22.485 –> 0:58:24.069 pill that prevents you from aging. 0:58:24.07 –> 0:58:26.725 So why would you ever want to take the 0:58:26.73 –> 0:58:29.098 pill? And you can just drink the wine? 0:58:29.1 –> 0:58:31.399 Yeah, exactly exactly. You have to drink. 0:58:31.4 –> 0:58:33.424 Case of it together, but alright here. 0:58:33.424 –> 0:58:36.62 Let’s say in an afternoon. But 0:58:36.62 –> 0:58:39.968 but the as I clear that that’s going to work. 0:58:39.968 –> 0:58:42.32 The problem is that that part of the 0:58:42.39 –> 0:58:45.267 scientiﬁc process is not as getting better. 0:58:45.27 –> 0:58:47 Major publications like the New 0:58:47 –> 0:58:48.73 York Times and Washington Post, 0:58:48.73 –> 0:58:50.977 and I think to a certain extent 0:58:50.977 –> 0:58:52.745 the networks in their coverage 0:58:52.745 –> 0:58:54.947 have done less of that dude. 0:58:54.95 –> 0:58:56.972 Taking small studies and they can 0:58:56.972 –> 0:58:59.448 go for a whole lot of reasons, 0:58:59.45 –> 0:59:01.185 go either way and making 0:59:01.185 –> 0:59:03.26 a big deal out of it. 0:59:05.59 –> 0:59:08.006 But there is a lot of lack of 0:59:08.006 –> 0:59:09.539 understanding of the need for. 0:59:11.75 –> 0:59:14.03 This consistent beta the data coming to

51 0:59:14.03 –> 0:59:16.353 the same conclusion before you make it 0:59:16.353 –> 0:59:18.74 recommendation and a lot of things changed. 0:59:18.74 –> 0:59:20.93 I mean it was a really big deal in the 0:59:20.992 –> 0:59:23.482 1990s when the Women’s Health Initiative 0:59:23.482 –> 0:59:25.142 showed that hormone replacement 0:59:25.208 –> 0:59:27.672 therapy was not was more harmful than 0:59:27.672 –> 0:59:29.236 beneficial and millions of women 0:59:29.236 –> 0:59:31.26 there went off it in an afternoon and 0:59:31.317 –> 0:59:33.352 suffered severe consequences like hot 0:59:33.352 –> 0:59:35.387 flashes and feeling really terrible. 0:59:35.39 –> 0:59:37.812 But there have been all these small 0:59:37.812 –> 0:59:40.388 studies and when I was guilty of doing, 0:59:40.39 –> 0:59:42.526 going along with some of these 0:59:42.526 –> 0:59:43.95 small studies that said. 0:59:43.95 –> 0:59:46.236 It enhanced your memory at made, 0:59:46.24 –> 0:59:48.532 made a woman’s skin better and 0:59:48.532 –> 0:59:50.06 all kinds of stuff. 0:59:50.06 –> 0:59:52.684 And it turned out it when somebody actually 0:59:52.684 –> 0:59:55.408 did the giant randomized control trial. 0:59:55.41 –> 0:59:56.938 It wasn’t the case. 0:59:56.94 –> 0:59:59.988 Well, maybe then part of the you know, 0:59:59.99 –> 1:00:01.586 science. Education that science 1:00:01.586 –> 1:00:03.581 journalists give should be more 1:00:03.581 –> 1:00:05.498 focused on the process of science. 1:00:05.5 –> 1:00:06.94 Rather, the process of 1:00:06.94 –> 1:00:08.74 science before you knowing the 1:00:08.74 –> 1:00:10.96 process of science before you report 1:00:10.96 –> 1:00:13.48 it is very important and that there 1:00:13.48 –> 1:00:14.956 are organizations like Annenberg 1:00:14.956 –> 1:00:17.044 Foundation supports a lot of of 1:00:17.044 –> 1:00:18.82 it’s called there’s a journalist.

52 1:00:18.82 –> 1:00:21.34 Tip Sheet is not just about science, 1:00:21.34 –> 1:00:23.5 but it tells you how to. 1:00:23.5 –> 1:00:25.69 How to approach this subject and 1:00:25.69 –> 1:00:28.18 to think about it and frame it. 1:00:28.18 –> 1:00:31.008 And you might want to talk to. 1:00:31.01 –> 1:00:32.816 Look at these resources and there is 1:00:32.816 –> 1:00:35.059 the AAA S the American associated with 1:00:35.059 –> 1:00:37.177 advancement of science has a whole 1:00:37.238 –> 1:00:39.088 lot of resources for journalists, 1:00:39.09 –> 1:00:41.211 so because a lot of mainstream publications 1:00:41.211 –> 1:00:43.61 have cut back on their science reporting, 1:00:43.61 –> 1:00:46.31 so you don’t have people who do it day 1:00:46.31 –> 1:00:49.099 in and day out who know the process. 1:00:49.1 –> 1:00:51.038 So that’s why you get the 1:00:51.038 –> 1:00:52.33 somebody from USA TODAY. 1:00:52.33 –> 1:00:53.96 Calling somebody out, asking stupid 1:00:53.96 –> 1:00:55.88 questions because they they don’t have. 1:00:55.88 –> 1:00:57.173 They don’t have background. 1:00:57.173 –> 1:00:59.113 They used to have a lot. 1:00:59.113 –> 1:01:00.753 USA TODAY as an example. 1:01:00.753 –> 1:01:03.54 They used to have a big size step. 1:01:03.54 –> 1:01:08.836 And if they laid oﬀ almost all an. 1:01:08.84 –> 1:01:11.57 So there, but for people who want 1:01:11.57 –> 1:01:13.55 good information is out there. 1:01:13.55 –> 1:01:17.238 I think that there’s not a danger that. 1:01:17.24 –> 1:01:20.498 An when things happen that scare 1:01:20.498 –> 1:01:22.67 public health people enough, 1:01:22.67 –> 1:01:24.66 the. 1:01:24.66 –> 1:01:25.743 Like vaccine hesitancy, 1:01:25.743 –> 1:01:27.909 there is a growing movement to 1:01:27.909 –> 1:01:29.109 handle it correctly.

53 1:01:29.11 –> 1:01:30.965 It hasn’t worked with edit 1:01:30.965 –> 1:01:32.078 global warming yet, 1:01:32.08 –> 1:01:34.537 but I think is young people get 1:01:34.537 –> 1:01:36.16 more interested in adults. 1:01:36.16 –> 1:01:38.47 It is more of a defining 1:01:38.47 –> 1:01:40.609 issue than they have when I 1:01:40.61 –> 1:01:42.094 certainly hope so, especially 1:01:42.094 –> 1:01:43.578 for creating great grandchildren. 1:01:43.58 –> 1:01:45.435 I don’t think it’s going 1:01:45.435 –> 1:01:47.66 to be great. I think as 1:01:47.66 –> 1:01:48.674 we grandchildren, 1:01:48.674 –> 1:01:50.702 grandchildren they’re going to 1:01:50.702 –> 1:01:53.48 really have to look at these. 1:01:53.48 –> 1:01:55.212 120 degree Fahrenheit days. 1:01:55.212 –> 1:01:57.81 There are occurring out regularly in 1:01:57.884 –> 1:02:00.038 Bombay and these water tables going 1:02:00.038 –> 1:02:02.659 down all over the world and crop 1:02:02.659 –> 1:02:04.891 shifting and things like Dengue a 1:02:04.891 –> 1:02:07.694 moving North in a big hurry because 1:02:07.694 –> 1:02:10.13 of mosquitoes are moving or it’s 1:02:10.13 –> 1:02:12.734 those are all that matters and well, 1:02:12.74 –> 1:02:14.96 maybe we should be re channel 1:02:14.96 –> 1:02:17.06 their energy into global warming. 1:02:17.06 –> 1:02:19.03 May be very helpful thing. 1:02:19.03 –> 1:02:21.774 Well thank you so much for coming. 1:02:21.78 –> 1:02:24.126 Yeah, I’ve really enjoyed speaking with 1:02:35.21 –> 1:02:36.86 Hope you enjoyed that episode. 1:02:36.86 –> 1:02:39.812 Thanks again to Bob for being on the podcast. 1:02:39.82 –> 1:02:42.252 You can find Bob on Twitter at Robert 1:02:42.252 –> 1:02:44.42 Buzzell and that’s at Robert Bazell. 1:02:44.42 –> 1:02:47.056 You can also find him at his adjunct

54 1:02:47.056 –> 1:02:48.7 faculty proﬁle page at yale.edu. 1:02:48.7 –> 1:02:51.33 You could also purchase this book her too, 1:02:51.33 –> 1:02:52.648 at your favorite bookseller. 1:02:52.648 –> 1:02:55.277 Pretty sure I picked up a copy on 1:02:55.277 –> 1:02:57.58 Amazon.com and it arrived in two days. 1:02:57.58 –> 1:02:58.588 It was awesome. 1:02:58.588 –> 1:03:00.604 Thanks to the Yale School of 1:03:00.604 –> 1:03:02.719 Medicine for sponsoring the podcast, 1:03:02.72 –> 1:03:04.62 and especially to Adrian Bottom 1:03:04.62 –> 1:03:06.52 Burger for producing this podcast 1:03:06.581 –> 1:03:08.567 and Ryan McEvoy for sound editing. 1:03:08.57 –> 1:03:10.537 Special thanks to you for listening again. 1:03:10.54 –> 1:03:11.95 My name is Daniel Barron 1:03:11.95 –> 1:03:13.36 and I’ve been your host. 1:03:13.36 –> 1:03:16.18 An will see you next time on science at all.