Jacobin Radio: The Science and Politics of COVID Vaccines

Suzi talks to her brother, Irv Weissman (https://www.ludwigcancerresearch.org/success-story/idea-man-qa-with-irv-weissman/), Director of Stanford University’s Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (https://med.stanford.edu/stemcell/institutefaculty/weissman.html), who gives us a clear and comprehensive explanation of the new COVID vaccines. The FDA has now given emergency authorization for the Pfizer COVID 19 vaccine, which like Moderna’s is an mRNA vaccine. This authorization comes in the wake of a punishing wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths as COVID rampages across the globe, with the highest rates of infection and death in the US. California is once again on lockdown. Consider this a primer on vaccines in general but COVID in particular – and we get answers to questions about how the new COVID vaccines work, what makes them revolutionary – and what obstacles -- structural, political and scientific – need to be understood – and possibly pushed out of the way?