The Life Scientific: Seth Berkley
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What motivates Dr. Seth Berkley in his career?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Elisa Aito 5G is the only and most profitable 5G phone in Finland. Realistically. Starting at 34,99 euros. Get acquainted. Elisa.fi or Aito 5G. Hello. From building a makeshift chemistry lab in his wardrobe as a child, and years later setting his own shattered leg after a climbing accident, to more recently raising billions of dollars to help vaccinate the world during the Covid pandemic, Dr Seth Barclay has never been one to do things by halves. Seth's career as an epidemiologist has revolved around one big problem, that vaccines save lives, but only if people can get them. His four decades in the field have taken him around the world, from helping to build Uganda's first HIV surveillance system and founding the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, to leading Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for more than a decade, overseeing the immunisation of hundreds of millions of children worldwide.
And when Covid-19 struck, Seth founded COVAX, the global initiative designed to stop wealthy nations monopolising vaccines. So it's no surprise that he doesn't pull his punches when it comes to calling out misinformation and believes public health messaging has to get back to the science. He says we need to care about this. People must understand that vaccinating the world is self-interest as much as humanitarian. It's a strong message.
How has misinformation affected vaccine trust?
Whether it's getting through to the right people remains to be seen. But we'll get to that. For now, Dr. Seth Barkley, welcome to The Life Scientific. Thanks for having me. Now, Seth, I think we have to start by acknowledging that this is a particularly strange time in vaccine science. There's a huge amount of anti-vax propaganda and disinformation floating about. How have we got to this point?
It really is crazy because on the one side, we're in a renaissance of science and amazing new tools are becoming available. We're tackling new diseases. And that's the exciting part. The bad part is there's been this incredible politicization of vaccines. And we saw this during the pandemic where many leaders called on their followers not to get vaccinated. And we saw death rates shift dramatically. where people following that advice had higher death rates. And we also saw intentional disinformation, which spreads literally at the speed of light, given social media.
What challenges did Seth face while working on HIV in Uganda?
And the combination of that has made people lose trust in governments, lose trust in vaccines, lose trust in health workers. And it takes a long time to build trust. Pretty easy to lose.
Yeah.
If you had to make a case for vaccines in just one sentence, what would you say to the skeptics? I mean, we have to start off by saying the natural situation of life is for children to die, lots of them. The mortality rates before public health was 300 out of 1,000. Today, in the best countries, it's about one and a half. And for me, vaccines are a way to have a parent never have to go through that horrible thing of losing a child, to know that if you have a child or two children, that they are likely to grow up, live, and in fact, today have about 40 years of extra life. That is because of these advances, as well as sanitation, clean water, etc. Right.
Well, of course, on a more positive note, we have seen some amazing success stories around vaccines in the past few decades. You've been involved with several of them. Is there any single example that stands out for you?
What was the significance of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative?
For me, what's really exciting is shifting from traditional infectious disease, which is the problem we just discussed, to now having vaccines that work against cancer and even vaccines that are working now against parasitic diseases. If I use an example of cancer, the HPV vaccine, human papillomavirus vaccine, You get this shot and you're prevented for the rest of your life of getting this horrible, slow, painful killer of people in the developing world. And it is now the most impactful vaccine that Gavi uses.
Well, Seth, I mentioned in the introduction that you built a lab in the wardrobe of your childhood bedroom.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What motivates Dr. Seth Berkley in his career?
0:00–1:45
2
How has misinformation affected vaccine trust?
1:45–2:43
3
What challenges did Seth face while working on HIV in Uganda?
2:43–3:47
4
What was the significance of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative?
3:47–4:54
5
How did Seth Berkley contribute to the Gavi Vaccine Alliance?
4:54–6:00
6
What role did COVAX play during the COVID-19 pandemic?
6:00–7:31
7
How can we tackle vaccine hesitancy and misinformation?
7:31–8:16
8
What lessons did Seth learn from his experiences in global health?
8:16–27:49