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Alan Bernstein

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The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1001.947

You also left off in that list a very important one, the Department of Energy. It funds about a billion dollars worth of research, both in-house and at American universities. And as you might imagine, the Department of Energy traditionally has been one of the leading research institutions for funding research on climate change.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1055.59

Well, again, historically, America has been a magnet for scientific talent for almost the entire 20th century. It started with a flood during World War II when many emigres from Germany, Austria, France came to the US. And they set an important precedent The success in building the atomic bomb under Oppenheimer was in large part due to those emigres.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1084.561

You know, the one person that jumps out to me is Enrique Fermi, who went to Fermi Labs in the University of Chicago. He was an emigre from Italy. And there's many, many others. That tradition has continued. And young people from around the world want to come to America to do science for lots of obvious reasons, I think. One is the institutions are so strong. They have the resources.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1108.352

They have the energy, the culture of we can do anything. And if it's going to be done, it's going to be done in America. That sort of bravado is so characteristically American. And it's evaporating before our eyes.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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Secondly, of course, having the immigration people descending on some of the immigrants who are here on visas in the United States and either taking them away and imprisoning them or sending them home at the drop of a hat without any kind of hearing is sending a clear signal, not an ambiguous one, a clear signal, you are not welcome in the United States anymore.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1147.245

And so if I was a young person working in Europe, Canada, Australia, you name it, I would not go to the United States at the moment to do my postgraduate degree or training. It just wouldn't happen. And indeed, I think that that pipeline of talent from abroad has probably shut down completely.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1207.745

You know, what's particularly frustrating for me, and I'm sure many of my colleagues in American science and biomedical research in particular, is we are in a golden age in biomedical research. It is such an exciting time to be in this field, including in the vaccine field, because vaccines have been traditionally – used against infectious disease.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1233.447

Indeed, it's hard to estimate the number of lives that have been saved because you can't count what hasn't happened. It's hard to count that. You can count how many people die, but you can't count how many people you've saved. It's of the order of hundreds of millions of people around the world whose lives have been saved because of vaccines.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1252.959

Smallpox, which was the world's largest killer over centuries, has been eradicated There is no smallpox in the world today. It is eliminated completely, largely through American know-how and American perseverance with the WHO and partnership with the WHO. Ditto with polio and measles. So a young physician today has never seen smallpox, has never seen polio, has never seen measles.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1280.737

And so when it appears... they're seeing a new disease. And these were diseases, certainly when I was growing up, and I suspect, David, when you were growing up, my mother wouldn't let me go swimming in a common swimming pool because of polio. We don't worry about polio anymore today. We shouldn't because children should be vaccinated.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1300.086

And Kennedy's point that they haven't been proven to be safe is really a criticism of the FDA. It's saying that the FDA has not done their job properly. Well, if you look at the FDA, it is the gold standard for approving new drugs and vaccines. It's very stringent, it really does a superb job, and it always outweighs the risks and the benefits of any drug, including vaccines.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1328.504

And so it's hard to imagine a medicine that has not got some risk associated to it. And the thing about vaccines, which makes it hard to convince somebody that they really are good and they should be taken, as their children should certainly take them, is when you take a pill when you're sick and you get better, you go, oh, that pill may be better.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1351.347

When you take a preventative vaccine, you don't get ill. And so there's no miraculous recovery There's the absence of disease. And you could always say, and people do say this, well, I wouldn't have got the disease anyways. So there wasn't the vaccine.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1480.959

So there's a couple of interesting facts about all this. I think if we were talking about this 500 years from now or 300 years from now and we look back and say, it's remarkable that whether you wore a mask or not or took a vaccine or not at the height of this pandemic depended on your political party that you belong to, no one would believe you.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1506.032

You know, it's like in America, and yet it happened. And it happened five years ago. So that's perplexing. Now, you know, I think there's a mea culpa here. I think the scientific community everywhere did not do things perfectly. And I think the mistake we made, we need to make sure we don't do it again. As we talk to the public, here are the facts. here's what we know you should do or not do.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1535.973

As opposed to saying, Here's the facts as we know them today. This might change. And we've never encountered this virus before. We don't know whether lockdowns are good, bad, or indifferent. Here's the consequences of locking down, not locking down, et cetera. We needed some hubris here, some modesty, admission that we don't know everything. Science is based on evidence and facts.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1563.727

How can you have evidence before the fact? So I think there was a bit of too much black and white, this is the way it is on the part of the scientific community. And so when we first said you should wear a mask, sorry, you should wash your hands and wash surfaces. And then weeks later, changed our minds and said, no, no, no.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1586.353

Actually, you should wear a mask because this virus is an aerosol, not on surfaces. I think that caused a lot of lack of confidence amongst the general public about the scientific community.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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So I'm a scientist, so I'll speak about the science. And you alluded to, David, the great strength of science is that it's not ideological. It's based on the currently available data or evidence. And so when scientists change their mind, The public still, despite the grade eight education that you refer to, the public still says, you're changing your mind. That's not good.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1697.8

Whereas to the scientific community, that's what it's all about. That's the strength of science, not the weakness of science. It's not religion. It's not an ideology, political ideology. And so I think it goes back to how we teach science in schools. We teach it as a series of facts as opposed to the way to look at the world. and to change our minds as the evidence changes.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1741.926

That's a great question. I think the right answer is it depends. We don't know what the Trump administration is going to do tomorrow, never mind five years from now. So I think we all wake up in the morning wondering what the news will bear about what the Trump administration is doing now.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1759.122

So I think a lot depends on how long these cuts, I'll just use cuts or attack on universities and science, how long that goes on. and how deeply those cuts actually are in the end of the day. And I don't know the answers to either of those questions. I don't think anybody does. I don't think President Trump does. So I think how quickly things recover will depend on those variables.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1784.175

And we don't know the answer. I do think that institutions take longer to recover than individuals. The thing we all need to remember is talent can move.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1795.22

You know, I have a publication from Europe that has listed in its latest edition all the things that European countries are now doing to attract American scientists, especially young people who are finding that their careers are cut off or ended because of what's going on. And so talent can move to Europe easily, and we'll be watching to see what happens in the United States four years from now.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1818.024

If it doesn't change, they'll stay in Europe, just like the emigres moved to the United States when the atmosphere changed radically in Nazi Germany, for example, or fascist Italy. So what happens will depend on a lot of things that I don't pretend to know the future, but I do know that science is going to continue elsewhere.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1837.018

And particularly in the EU, Canada is going to reinvest in the new prime minister said he will reinvest in science and in China. China is investing huge, huge amounts and increasing it by 10, 20% a year. over the next few years.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1853.27

And so if one thinks about the standoffs between these two great superpowers, the United States and China, we have the United States attacking one of its most powerful weapons in the current 21st century war between countries and the Chinese investing. Now, which one do you think is right? Well, I go back to what Harry Truman said after World War II.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1876.569

Science played a major role in winning World War II. The drones that were used or are being used by the Ukraine in the war on Russia, those drones are largely powered by artificial intelligence. AI didn't just happen. AI came out of universities. You know, the Nobel Prize in physics this year went to Jeffrey Hinton, who works at the University of Toronto.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1902.33

So the new weapons of warfare are largely going to come out of universities. I think that's not a prediction. That's a safe prediction. And yet Americans are attacking those universities where all this is happening.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1966.515

Look, I don't think universities are perfect. I think there is a lot of wokeism that probably has gone a bit too far. But having said that, I would quickly add the great strength of universities and the role of universities and the role of acquiring new knowledge is to challenge the status quo. if you're just going to reaffirm the status quo, you don't need a university to do that.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

1992.166

And that goes back to Galileo 500 years ago. Galileo challenged the church. Does the earth go around the sun or vice versa? So I think political leaders have to allow for this freedom and this openness and small-L liberalism that goes on in universities if they're going to get the kind of value out of universities that have been going on for a thousand years now since Oxford was created.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

2022.184

So I think there needs to be an understanding on the base of our political leaders that dissent, looking at different ways of doing things, It can be uncomfortable. And that is the role of the universities. No other institution in society does that as well as a university. In fact, no other institution in society, as far as I can think, does that at all.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

2046.508

So I think we need to acknowledge that, and politicians need to acknowledge that, and tolerate it.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

2065.976

I don't like predicting the future. And I don't like talking as a biomedical scientist, cancer has been my own area. I don't like saying it's around the corner because then people lose interest after a while. But I do think if I look in the immediate past, how remarkable the progress has been, not just in scientific advances, but in clinical advances.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

2089.115

And I think back to when my wife had breast cancer. Now, as you reminded me 15 years ago, she would not be alive today if she had had that cancer 25 years ago. And certainly when I started in cancer research, I won't say how many years ago, we knew nothing about the cancer cell. And so the tools that clinicians had at their disposal were crude at best, crude at best.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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Today, we know the most intimate way molecular changes that makes a cancer cell behave differently than a normal cell. We know the mutations in the DNA that are causing these changes, and we know the effects on the proteins that those genes code for. And so now we can design drugs that exploit those changes.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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And so if you're a woman with breast cancer, you're gonna be treated, if your cells are HER2 positive, I'm sure every woman knows that phrase, you'll be treated with Herceptin. because we know that molecular difference. If you have chronic myelogenous leukemia, you'll be treated with Gleevec. Or if you have GI stromal cancer, you'll be treated with Gleevec.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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These are all based on information that's come out over the last dozen years or so. Of course, now the big excitement, and not just in cancer, but in other diseases, is using vaccines to treat disease and to prevent disease. So again, these are advances that have happened recently and are on the horizon to continue to happen.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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So I'll take in contrast to where cancer research is, which I view as the beachhead disease, if you will. If you think about mental illness, schizophrenia, bipolar disease, we have only very crude tools. to treat those very serious diseases. And the reason is we don't understand those diseases.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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But I think every scientist who's working in the field of biomedical science is optimistic that it is just a matter of time before we will understand really serious diseases like bipolar, depression, Alzheimer's, dementia, and from that will come a whole new class of drugs.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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And when that will happen, I don't know, but I think what we have been seeing is an acceleration of new drugs coming on the market because of the advances that have been made at universities and exploited correctly by the pharmaceutical industry. So this is a very exciting time. And so to cut that off would be just a shame, just a shame. Thank you so much for your time today. My pleasure, David.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

707.072

So first, David, it's a pleasure to be on the show with you. First of all, backing up a little bit and just saying how important science has been to America's success. I think people don't quite appreciate that, but it goes back to actually World War II. And Harry Truman, when he was president, realized that in one way, science kind of won the war. It wasn't just the atomic bomb.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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It was penicillin, it was radar, it was sonar. And so he asked a guy called Vannevar Bush, I don't think it's a relation to the other Bushes, to make some recommendations about what America should do. And he wrote what's a famous book in scientific circles called Science, the Endless Frontier.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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And in that book, Bush recommended that America invest heavily in science, and particularly in American universities, because it would lead to economic well-being, it would lead to power in the world, it would lead to security for America. And I don't know that anybody at that time appreciated just how right he was.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

777.435

Because if you look at the growth of the American economy and the growth of American well-being and health outcomes, anything you want to measure, the numbers are anywhere between 20 to 40 to 50 percent of America's well-being, if you will, and growth in GDP and all those things was due to science and innovation.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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Today, as we're witnessing kind of the destruction of the institutions behind American science, It's hard to believe that any administration would do this. All right. Well, destruction is a dramatic word. How severe is the damage? I think it's very severe. And it's not just my own personal view. I was talking to a close friend at Stanford, actually.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

822.918

And she was talking, even though Stanford has not been hit by one of the sort of things that Columbia or NYU, the East Coast elite universe, so-called elite universities have been hit by it. They no longer are guaranteeing salaries for PhD students who enter into the graduate program at Stanford. Stanford is a wealthy university.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

845.102

So they're kind of circling the wagons and harvesting, you know, harboring their funds in case the Trump administration goes after them. So I think it's hard to overstate how serious this is. And I think the thing we should all keep in mind is by going after the institutions of science, so I would say there's several categories, the funders of science.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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So the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, is the world's largest funder of biomedical research. By cutting its budget, by severely cutting its staff funding, It's crippling the world's major funder of biomedical research. Never mind America's major funder of biomedical research.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

888.495

By going after the top research universities in the United States, the Columbias, the Johns Hopkins, the Harvards, the Yales, it's also crippling the major institutions that are supporting researchers in the U.S. That's, first of all, unprecedented, of course, but it's also crippling for the institutions that support science in the U.S., not just the individuals.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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So it's hard to overstate how serious this is.

The David Frum Show

America’s Pro-Disease Movement

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You do, actually. That's sort of the etymology of American funding institutions. And there are some that cover at least two. So the NIH, for example— has a very large so-called intramural program that funds research within government in Bethesda, Maryland. And then there's also institutions that actually fund, the NIH also funds science at American universities. So it does both.