Under the Biden administration, a lax safety environment at the most dangerous biolabs in America could have caused a second pandemic, Trump NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells Glenn. He points to Fort Detrick's Integrated Research Facility, where an employee allegedly recently cut a hole in a coworker’s hazmat suit with the goal of causing sickness. “This goes back to the Biden administration,” he says about the only story that has “scared” him since starting his job. Dr. Bhattacharya explains how the Trump administration plans to increase security in our labs. Plus, he gives his take on the President’s executive order to make pharmaceuticals cheaper for Americans and his previous EO to pause gain-of-function research.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.
So I am thrilled to have Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on. He's from the National Institutes of Health.
I want to talk to him about being science back into the NIH.
There was a lab leak. And I want to get to that here in a second.
But I have to touch on the news of the take. And it's not really his area of expertise.
But the president just signed an executive order to lower drug costs.
Doctor, welcome to the program. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Any comment on that, as we get started here?
JAY: Sure. It's something I studied in a past life when I was a professor. The difference in product prices between the United States and Europe is sharp and alarming.
And it has been persisting for decades.
Sometime between two and five times. Sometimes as high as 10 times, of the same drug as Europeans do.
And, you know, as a professor who has a -- you know, has a deal in economics, I'll tell you. When you see a persistent price differences like that. That indicates a very unhealthy market.
And this particular state, what it means is that, Americans. American consumers, essentially are being taken advantage of.
American patients are paying, you know, through the nose, for drugs that are -- that Europeans paid much less for.
And the reason is, that the European countries will tell drug companies, if you don't lower the drug prices to a very low level, you know, just above -- then we're not going to cover you at all.
And the -- what the drug companies, told Americans, if we don't pay higher drug prices, there won't be any RD on drugs. What the president and the executive order does is it tell Europeans, look, this is not fair to Americans. This is actually lowering the investment, that we could possibly be making on R&D for drugs.
And so they should be paying prices that are equal to the level Americans pay. And the Americans pay much lower prices than we do -- much closer -- it's a huge move forward.
And now, we'll have to see, what Europeans do. Ask what drug companies do in response. Does to me, I've been hearing about this problem for decades.
It's the first time a president has really taken a big step to really try to address it.
GLENN: As someone who is in research for a very long time.
Let me -- doesn't the promise of AI, AGI, ASI. Lessen this whole thing of we need gobs of money to be able to do R&D. Because that should, you know, in maybe five years from now, begin to do -- to cut those costs dramatically.
To take that chair away from the table. Or put that chair back into the table, if you will.
JAY: Yeah. No. That's quite -- just to give one example.
There's this technology called Alpha Fold. That allows scientists to much more easily understand how proteins will fold on each other.
And how -- and as a result, hopefully, anyway, dramatically reduce drug development expenditures.
Drug development is -- you still have to run randomized, large-scale clinical trials, and those will be expensive.
But the initial perception of drug development with AI. And as well as the clinical trials will be much more efficiently run over time.
The idea that you need to have trillions of dollars, you know. Tens of billions of dollars, to develop a single drug.
We hope, it will become a thing of the past.
In any case, there's no reason why the Americans should shoulder the burden of the whole rest of the world. The developed world should be bearing this burden together.
GLENN: Let me switch.
You know, I recently reached out to you, because I wanted to talk to you about the HHS halting work at high risk infectious disease labs around the world.
And I -- I can't believe this is true. But you tell me.
So there was an incident that -- at a -- at a bio lab. That apparently, what happened is. There was a -- I don't know.
A personal squabble between people.
And a contractor, actually punched a hole in the other person's biolab suit.
I don't know. To get them sick.
Or whatever.
But it was -- I mean, is that what happened, at that bio lab?
I think it was at Ft. Diedrick.
JAY: That's exactly what happened.
I haven't been scared about anything, except for that one thing.
So I learned about this, about three weeks into the job.
I've been in the job, since the beginning of April.
It turns out, that there had been an incident a few weeks before.
In fact, right before I signed -- I like joined the NIH director.
A lab had much run -- part of the lab is run by the National Institute of Health.
And it's a -- which is the highest biosecurity lab.
GLENN: Right.
JAY: I mean, the lab, the experiments done there, are on some really nasty bugs.
You know, Ebola. A whole bunch of viruses and pathogens.
If it gets out in the population or if it injects lab workers, it's for -- it's quite deadly.
GLENN: Right.
JAY: And what I've learned was that there's been incidents, just a couple of weeks before I joined as director of the NIH. Where a lab worker has cut a hole in the -- in a bio containment suit of a fellow worker with the express intention of getting that worker infected.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh.
JAY: If that is -- and apparently, it was over some lover's spat. And I'm not sure exactly the details.
There's an ongoing investigation of that.
What I learned was that -- that the -- not just the incident that happened.
Which actually has a threat not just to the worker.
GLENN: The world.
JAY: If these gets out.
I was actually -- I mean, I was absolutely livid.
And so what I do, is I order the lab -- an operational shutdown. Secured all of the vials of the nasty bugs, in a safe environment. Made sure the animals were cared for, that they're in the lab.
And we're going to -- we're not going to open that up, until the safety of the lab is absolutely solid.
The contractor that was overseeing this. I think did a very last week job. What I learned, this goes back to the Biden administration.
That the safety environment in the lab, essentially, downplayed these kinds of security problems.
If you're going to run experiments on these bugs.
And personally, I'm not sold that all of these are worth doing.
But in any case, if you're going to run. Have an absolute responsibility to have zero to do for safety problems.
GLENN: Right.
JAY: The issue here, is not just a one-off thing.
It's something problematic in the safety culture of this lab. Where I don't -- I cannot guarantee that if we reopen the lab right now. It would be a safe environment.
While we reopen the lab. I'm sure that's the case.
GLENN: Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shouldn't that person be punished.
That really is attempted murder. And maybe on a mass scale.
JAY: I mean, there's an ongoing investigation.
I shouldn't say more about this.
It's one of those things.
I was actually actively scared when I first heard --
GLENN: Yeah. Americans are actively scared. Because none of this stuff should be happening.
We are just. We're just an accident or a stupid move. Or an intentional leak away from mass death.
And, you know, you keep hearing people like Bill Gates saying, we're on the verge of another pandemic.
Why?
Why?
I mean, why are we on the verge of another pandemic?
Do you think we are?
JAY: I mean, you know, pandemics happen. They happen all throughout history.
The key thing to me, though, Glenn. We don't want to cause one.
GLENN: Right.
JAY: That increases the risk of them.
This past pandemic. Is that it was very likely caused by actions aimed at stopping pandemics from happening.
GLENN: Yeah.
JAY: Almost this hubris.
It was hubris.
This idea that we could somehow, if we go into the case of China and all the wild places.
Bring all those viruses we find there.
It happens that we find there. Into the lab.
Catalog them.
We can somehow prevent all pandemics from happening.
Making them more dangerous to humans.
We can somehow as a result of that exercise, make it less likely to have pandemics happen.
Of course, what we found out, the opposite is true.
You can't do this work entirely safely.
And actually, even if you fully accomplish what is the same of that sort of research program.
Which is to go out, and find the pathogen.
You wouldn't protect anybody against the pathogen. Because what would happen is, when and if the outbreak happens, whatever countermeasures you denied for them would already be out of date.
Because the illusionary biology of these viruses is you take very rapidly.
And so when they come out of the population, the countermeasures you prepared for, which you never attempted in any humans, very likely would not work.
GLENN: Have we stopped all of the gain of function stuff now? Are you convinced it's done?
JAY: Yeah. So last week, President Trump signed in an absolutely historic executive order. Which puts a pause. A full pause on all of gain of function work throughout the government.
And we -- we implemented a pause at the NIH.
And I'm sure the government has done the same.
Over the next 90 days, we will develop the framework.
Here's how the framework will work.
You have to be a little careful here. Gain of function can mean many things.
For instance, insulin is produced via the gain of function exercise. There's no risk of a pandemic being codified, but you take a bacteria and E. coli.
You change, so they can produce insulin. That's how you produce human insulin.
That's a completely safe thing to do. On the other hand, you take a virus like a bat virus, and then the -- that has these sort of coronavirus-like properties.
Add a (inaudible) and manipulate it so they can infect human cells more easily.
Well, now you have the potential to cause a pandemic. If you're going to do an experiment like that, you the scientist alone. Or scientist alone, should not get to decide whether the risk is worth taking. The public should have a say.
The public should be able to say, no, that's -- no matter what knowledge you're going to gain from that. It's not worth the risk of causing a worldwide pandemic, that will kill 20 million people and cost $25 trillion or something.
And that's exactly what they want to do. They say, if you assign -- if I assign this to a project, the public will have a veto over that.
They know you're not allowed to do it.
Because most science won't be affected by this.
Most science has no chance of causing a pandemic. Any time that it does, it will be the subject of this very, very strict regulatory framework.
GLENN: We're on with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is a hero in my book, now the director of the National Institutes of Health.
Is an apology good enough for the National Institute of Health? I mean, should anybody go to jail for what has happened?
And what is it like to walk into that building? When you're enemy number one, to many in that building. You know, during the time pandemic.
JAY: You know, it's been interesting. It's certainly a big turn of faith.
Where I -- a devastating takedowns. And called all kinds of names. By folks, who are in this building, where I now lead.
At the same time, I found many, many excellent scientists. Many people devoted to -- to advancing human knowledge.
For benefiting. For the benefit of all people.
I mean, most scientists are like that. They're not trying to create havoc.
And so I've been trying to find out.
And I found out a lot -- you asked, what should happen, with regard to policy.
To me, apology is -- I mean, I -- I think the key thing. Personally, I'm very happy to apologize, on behalf of American public health. To the American people, to the failure during COVID. The key thing going forward is reform.
How do we change the institutions? So that it's focused on the health needs of the American people.
Rather than these utopian schemes to end all pandemics. Adding no heat whatsoever to the risk that they take.
Science is very, very powerful.
Kind of an idea and institution. But it needs to be focused on real, human needs.
Real -- particularly, for the NIH. Real human health needs.
And there have to be guardrails so that scientists understand, they operate in the context of public support. We -- we function on taxpayer money. We have to answer to the taxpayers.
So that's been the challenge.
Keep the light of science alive.
While still reminding scientists that we are not acting just as -- as if we were like independent actors like God. We are actually beholden to the American people.
GLENN: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. I unfortunately, have to take a network break.
I would love to have you back for a longer podcast.
Thank you. Thank you. For everything you did during the COVID nightmare.
And thank you for standing up so strongly now.
And congratulations on being our director of the NIH.
JAY: Thank you, Glenn. So good to talk.
GLENN: God bless you. Buh-bye.
