The following is a transcript of an interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, aired on February 14, 2021, on “Face the Nation.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: We now turn to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He is aboard Pfizer as well as Illumina, and joins us from Westport, Connecticut. Good morning to you.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you agree with the executive director of Rite Aid there that the private sector has a more direct role in more of this process. Do you see the Biden administration finally getting there?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think I’m doing it right now, the Biden administration. I think he is taking a comprehensive approach to trying to push this and create more access sites. You know, the only recommendation I would make is that I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t allocate as many federal resources to the development of these mass vaccination sites. I think people who can go online, register, go to Dodger Stadium, wait in line, take half a day off from work to get vaccinated, these are people who could be served by Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid. I would take federal and state resources and create more customized solutions that can be used in some of the hard-to-reach environments, some of the disadvantaged communities, whether you can move mobile vans to those communities, try to work through community groups, local vendors, church groups, community health centers to try to vaccinate harder-to-reach populations. It’s a very difficult effort. It’s expensive. It is a personalized effort. It is a practical effort. I would direct federal resources to such a mission and let Walmart handle the easy request and Rite Aid.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Biden administration has bought another 200 million doses. This gives them a stock of about 600 in the end once it leaves the production line. You heard me talking to the director of the CDC and I asked her when the production should move to those treatments of the new variants. She said this was happening now. What can you tell us about our position that we are prepared to protect ourselves against those new variants?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, look, I think we have enough time to get this right for the fall and to have vaccine stimulators that could cover these new variants. Development work is underway right now. So all companies are developing new variants of vaccines, including Pfizer, the company they belong to. The question is, when do you start going over your production? And I think you’ll probably have to make that decision at some point in July, at the latest in August. And you may not change your entire manufacture. You may change some of your production to these new vaccine variants, because remember, they will not yet be fully through clinical trials. So you don’t want to throw all the eggs in that basket, but you want to create a supply that you will have on hand in the fall if you need these vaccines. So, I think that’s where you’re going to make that decision. The time to start manufacturing the manufacturing process and to actually get the vaccine off the line is about two months. So if you start manufacturing in July, you will start vaccinating on the line in time for the fall.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have heard the British Prime Minister support his decision to continue vaccinating his population with the AstraZeneca vaccine, even though it has proved not to be as effective in the first trials against the South African version. AND the WHO stays with her. It is a mistake?
DR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Well, I think if we’re going to do that, we need a plan B. I understand why they want to do that. They made a lot of this vaccine. It’s cheap. It is accessible. It could be introduced in low- and middle-income countries due to handling requirements. Does not require complicated storage in the cold chain. But if you introduce a vaccine in those markets that we know does not cover B.1.351, the South African version, very good, if at all. You run the risk of choosing that option in those markets. Therefore, you need a plan B as to which vaccine you will implement in those regions if, in fact, B.1.351 becomes predominant in those regions after you have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. And the problem is that you can exclude the only vaccine that is the most likely candidate in those markets, which is the J&J vaccine, because it has very similar storage requirements. You would like to use that vaccine. But in fact, the AstraZeneca vaccine is very immunogenic against the vaccine vector. So what I use to provide the COVID gene sequence is a chimpanzee adenovirus. And it looks like the adenovirus I’m using is very immunogenic. It creates antibodies that can attack other adenoviruses, including maybe and we don’t know for sure, but maybe the J&J vaccine. So you might rule out the possibility of using that vaccine in these markets, which means you need another plan B, which could be mRNA vaccines, such as the vaccine that Pfizer produces, the company in which are part. But these vaccines are harder to handle in those markets because they require more complicated storage in the cold chain. So we need to address this right now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a pretty big warning you’re making right now. I- I–
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think they … I think they need to have a plan for that, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I also want to ask you about these comments. I thought they were quite sharp from the Biden administration’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. He said yesterday that the Biden administration has deep concerns about the World Health Organization’s investigation into the Chinese meddling in it. He asked for the data to be handed over. That’s exactly what the Trump administration demanded. What else does China have here that we need to know about?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Lots of data. Well, first of all, they have antibody tests on people who worked in that lab in Wuhan. They did not make this available. So you would like to know if they have antibodies against coronavirus. That would be an indication that they may have become infected. Now, these antibodies will disappear over time. But at least you want to look at this data. We want to see sequencing data from samples taken from people who were hospitalized in October and November with viral syndromes that looked like COVID to see if this infection was spreading earlier and try to get closer to the source of the initial outbreak. This data is definitely available, the Chinese have it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DR. GOTTLIEB: So there’s a lot of data that hasn’t been made available.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Gottlieb, thank you, as always, for your time. We’ll be back in a moment.