Susan Desmond-Hellmann
speaker
362 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Susan Desmond-Hellmann’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And Art and I both attended just because we loved it and we wanted to be there, but we weren't decision makers. We were just attendees.
Yeah. But in this case, there was someone who the discussion was about Herceptin and how well the test to find who was HER2 positive performed. And if you got more patients, you would get more commercial, but you would have patients who wouldn't benefit. And someone who I won't name said, but if we have a test that does like this, we can get more money.
And as if in unison, Art and I both rose up from our chairs and said, we never do that. We don't do that here. Done. Everyone kind of sat down and we weren't the decision makers. But see, that's culture. If you wondered, it's right where the decisions are being made and everything else. That for me is culture.
The other one that because I'm in so many meetings and was in so many meetings at Gates Foundation, I had a practice. I would sit, Bill would be there or Melinda would be there, but often Bill and me there and you're presenting. And Bill's peppering you with questions, some of them very tough, in a very tough way. I would look at you. You got that.
I can't tell you how many people I actually didn't even know I did it that I would nod.
Smile, coach. I would also stall. Hey, hold on a minute, Bill. I think he's just getting ready to answer that question. You're talking over him right now. In a nice way, not confrontational. That for me is culture. I want you to succeed. I want you to know I want you to succeed. It's the guy who runs the foundation. It's the two people who are the chairs. So it's going to be scary.
That's why I think that bringing out the best in people and giving people agency to do that on their own means that if somebody sees Art Levinson say, that's not the way we do it here, they'll go down the hall in a different meeting and say, you know, I heard Art say, I think that's really powerful. That's really powerful.
I had announced that I was leaving and literally pack in the house as COVID hit. Actually a few miles from us, the first case in Washington state, nursing home.
I do not think you're too pessimistic. I am absolutely horrified. Horrified. It's shocking to me that the narrative is in the place it is today. And I'm honestly still processing how we got here from there. It is a really bad place. And I think you're right. I think if it happened again today, it would be the way it was with worst of COVID, but even worse.
Because trust and the need to have sides and winning and losing, I don't remember health and medicine being winning and losing and sides as I've been in this business for 40 years. It's just weird. I don't get it.
Bird flu is working hard on it right now.
I think the public would welcome... Look, I just told you about bone marrow transplants for breast cancer. If you tell people, look, here's what we thought. We thought harder treatment was better for people. It's now proven that it's not. Science changes. People know that. But you're right. I think that being honest and open when it changes and how it changes matters a lot. It really does.
I also think you didn't say, but I would add to your recommendation, which I think is a really smart one. The pace of communication, the social media and misinformation or just stuff gets out there really fast. And having something slow doesn't keep up.
Yeah, I don't think it's a matter of kicking people off because actually I think you enhance that and you may be wrong. But being part of the dialogue, I'll give you an example that I've been reading the last couple of weeks. Ivermectin for cancer.
So my point's a simple one. The nature abhors a vacuum. So if you say I'm not going to kick off people, the lab is a good example, but I'm not going to remain silent. Here's what I know about that thing, about the lab. Here's the facts. Here's the publication. You know, I think that the absence seeds that space to people.
I feel like the anti-vax, specifically things like autism, many people have seeded that space on social media because you are kicked in the butt if you don't. So I do think you can't leave a vacuum.
It is an impossibility. There's no doubt about it. Every cancer has very specific biologies that allow it to grow and spread and cause humans problems. And that's why you don't go to the cancer doctor. You go for a prostate cancer. You go for a gastric cancer. You go because the biology of each of the cancers is different.
Right. So we use anatomy to describe where the tumors are, but it is not irrational to use different doses of medicines in combination with other doses. The thing that we went over is the preclinical phase one, phase two, phase three is meant to give whatever cancer patient, whether in this case, I think prostate cancer has been talked about a lot,
all the information they deserve on both safety and efficacy. Does it work? Does it shrink the tumor? Does it help them live longer? I haven't read anything about ivermectin doing that in patients and what the side effects are and how it could harm patients. So I think patients deserve that kind of information.
They'd be all over this.
Showing 301–320 of 362 · page 16 of 19
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