1 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:08,009 Hi, my name is Paul Offit. I'm from the Children's Hospital, Philadelphia and the 2 00:00:08,009 --> 00:00:12,005 Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. 3 00:00:12,005 --> 00:00:16,001 What I thought I would talk about in this lecture is rotavirus vaccines. 4 00:00:16,001 --> 00:00:19,369 And it's the only, actually, what I'll talk just about one specific vaccine for the whole lecture. 5 00:00:19,369 --> 00:00:22,928 And it's not because I think rotaviruses are especially important among the vaccines, 6 00:00:22,928 --> 00:00:26,085 rather it's because I actually was fortunate enough to be part 7 00:00:26,085 --> 00:00:29,893 of the team at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia that developed this vaccine. 8 00:00:29,893 --> 00:00:35,038 So I really watched it go from, from early research through development and so 9 00:00:35,038 --> 00:00:38,757 basically from bench to bedside and it was an educational process for me. 10 00:00:38,757 --> 00:00:41,992 And so I thought it would be fun to kind of go through this story. 11 00:00:41,992 --> 00:00:51,002 So rotaviruses are a virus that infects the small intestine and it causes fever and vomiting 12 00:00:51,002 --> 00:00:54,065 and water loss or dehydration in young children. 13 00:00:54,065 --> 00:00:58,790 This is a study done by Bill Rodriguez at the Children's Hospital in DC. 14 00:00:58,790 --> 00:01:02,875 And he looked at rotavirus as compared to other viruses that cause the so-called stomach viruses, 15 00:01:02,875 --> 00:01:09,855 and found that rotaviruses were particularly capable of causing vomiting and dehydration. 16 00:01:09,855 --> 00:01:15,346 And that's why, when you have the stomach virus, you sort of lose water when you have dehydra- 17 00:01:15,346 --> 00:01:19,288 when you have diarrhea, you lose water when you have fever, 18 00:01:19,288 --> 00:01:22,086 and it's hard to rehydrate yourself when you're vomiting. 19 00:01:22,086 --> 00:01:26,005 So that's sort of those three things together can rapidly lead to dehydration, 20 00:01:26,005 --> 00:01:29,001 which can cause hospitalization, and death. 21 00:01:30,539 --> 00:01:40,154 This is just a stained section of the small intestine showing the virus infecting the intestine. 22 00:01:40,154 --> 00:01:43,099 And what you can see here is that, 23 00:01:45,638 --> 00:01:52,594 if you look here at this sort of, these kind of finger-like projections, so-called villi, into the small intestine, 24 00:01:52,594 --> 00:01:56,453 You can see that the virus is infecting these cells that are detected 25 00:01:56,453 --> 00:02:01,184 as so-called mature epithelial cells that line the intestine. 26 00:02:01,184 --> 00:02:05,124 That's what rotaviruses do. They infect those cells, and they damage those cells, 27 00:02:05,139 --> 00:02:09,971 and they make it very difficult to resorb water. 28 00:02:09,971 --> 00:02:14,677 And it causes diarrhea, and it causes vomiting, and it causes dehydration. 29 00:02:15,031 --> 00:02:20,270 So, every year, in the United States, prior to the vaccines are being licensed and used, 30 00:02:20,285 --> 00:02:27,447 which was around 2006, rotavirus accounts for about 2.7 million cases, about 500,000 doctor visits, 31 00:02:27,447 --> 00:02:34,528 about 270,000 emergency department visits, 70,000 hospitalizations, and 20-60 deaths each year. 32 00:02:34,528 --> 00:02:38,167 If you assume a broad cohort between 3.5 and 4 million children every year in the U.S., 33 00:02:38,167 --> 00:02:42,482 that meant that about 1 out of every 50 children born in the United States would be hospitalized 34 00:02:42,482 --> 00:02:45,509 with dehydration secondary to rotavirus infection. 35 00:02:45,509 --> 00:02:50,131 Those numbers are dramatically decreased since the vaccine came. And then we'll talk about that. 36 00:02:51,239 --> 00:02:58,071 In the developing world, rotavirus is a killer. It accounts for about 500,000 deaths a year. 37 00:02:58,071 --> 00:03:04,308 That means about 2,000 children die every day from this virus, from the dehydration caused by this virus. 38 00:03:04,308 --> 00:03:08,869 Actually, it's the single agent. It's one of the most important killers of infants and young children in the world. 39 00:03:08,869 --> 00:03:11,006 And for that reason there was a tremendous amount of interest 40 00:03:11,006 --> 00:03:14,603 both publicly and privately to try develop a vaccine to prevent it. 41 00:03:15,757 --> 00:03:22,282 Now, the original idea on how to make a vaccine, and it's sort of Edward Jenner-like approach. 42 00:03:22,340 --> 00:03:26,001 And I talked about Edward Jenner in another lecture, in a history of vaccines lecture. 43 00:03:26,001 --> 00:03:30,408 But the initial idea was why - since all mammals that live 44 00:03:30,408 --> 00:03:33,559 on the face of the earth have their own rotavirus strain - 45 00:03:33,559 --> 00:03:35,986 why don't we actually do the same thing that Edward Jenner did? 46 00:03:35,986 --> 00:03:41,235 Remember, Edward Jenner used the cowpox virus to protect against human smallpox. 47 00:03:41,235 --> 00:03:47,270 He - we now know--he didn't know that, but we now know the cowpox is similar enough to, 48 00:03:47,270 --> 00:03:53,003 was similar enough to human smallpox, that infection with one could prevent disease caused by the other. 49 00:03:53,003 --> 00:03:55,840 So, really, that was the same thinking here was 50 00:03:55,840 --> 00:04:02,006 'why not use a non-human rotavirus strain to protect against human rotavirus?' 51 00:04:02,006 --> 00:04:07,541 This just shows you all the [inaudible] species that could be affected by rotavirus. 52 00:04:08,157 --> 00:04:13,326 But species barriers are high, meaning that as it was true, smallpox were, 53 00:04:13,326 --> 00:04:18,003 cowpox could cause significant disease in cows but not people, 54 00:04:18,003 --> 00:04:24,667 and human smallpox could cause significant disease in human but not cows. That's also true here. 55 00:04:24,667 --> 00:04:31,615 So for example, cow rotavirus could cause severe vomiting and diarrhea in cows, 56 00:04:31,615 --> 00:04:37,754 but really doesn't do that in people. And vice versa, human rotaviruses really don't cause disease in cows. 57 00:04:37,754 --> 00:04:43,162 So, it's the species barriers that are high, and that was the original idea. 58 00:04:43,162 --> 00:04:48,058 So what happened was, there was a group at the National Institute of Health, 59 00:04:48,058 --> 00:04:54,253 headed by Al Kapikian, Rob Chanock, Taka Hoshino, Harry Greenberg, Jorge Flores and others; 60 00:04:54,253 --> 00:05:01,253 who looked at a strain called RRV. Now that strain stands for Resist Rotavirus. 61 00:05:01,253 --> 00:05:07,084 This was a virus, a rotavirus strain that was isolated from a monkey in Northern California in the 1980's 62 00:05:07,084 --> 00:05:17,670 by H. Milerby. That virus was then purified by growing it in cell culture, and not so much weakened. 63 00:05:17,670 --> 00:05:21,048 The notion was that it would be weakened in humans because it wasn't a human virus. 64 00:05:21,064 --> 00:05:22,838 This is sort of the same idea Edward Jenner had. 65 00:05:22,838 --> 00:05:26,862 And when the vaccine was then given by mouth at 2, 4, and 6 months of age 66 00:05:26,862 --> 00:05:29,559 to children in Sweden, and in Finland, it worked. 67 00:05:29,559 --> 00:05:34,823 It seemed to protect against the moderate to severe dehydration 68 00:05:34,823 --> 00:05:39,004 as it's shown on the first two rows on the slide. 69 00:05:39,004 --> 00:05:43,708 But when the vaccine was then tested in Rochester, NY in a trial; it didn't seem to work. 70 00:05:43,708 --> 00:05:49,959 So, I think what people concluded after this series of trial was that a non-human virus - in this case, a monkey virus - 71 00:05:49,959 --> 00:05:55,708 was inconsistently capable of protecting against human rotavirus disease. 72 00:05:56,523 --> 00:06:02,019 Now we worked, and by we, I mean Stanley Plotkin and Fred Clark, who headed this program; 73 00:06:02,019 --> 00:06:07,594 worked at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia; with a strain called WC3. 74 00:06:07,594 --> 00:06:13,223 And that was actually isolated from a calf with diarrhea at the Kenneth Square facility 75 00:06:13,223 --> 00:06:16,785 which is the large animal facility, the , the veterinary school here at the University of Pennsylvania. 76 00:06:16,881 --> 00:06:20,685 And we took that virus and then we went back to the Wistar Institute 77 00:06:20,685 --> 00:06:23,664 and we purified it by passing it in a cell culture. 78 00:06:23,664 --> 00:06:29,669 And since it was from the third calf that we tested, it was called WC3 or Wistar Calf Three. 79 00:06:29,669 --> 00:06:35,594 We gave this virus by mouth to children at 2, 4 and 6 months of age in Philadelphia 80 00:06:35,594 --> 00:06:38,685 and found that it was excellent at protecting against moderate to severe disease 81 00:06:38,685 --> 00:06:42,786 and actually very good at protecting against even mild disease caused by rotavirus. 82 00:06:42,786 --> 00:06:47,008 But when we then tested the vaccine in Cincinnati or in Bangui in the Central African Republic, 83 00:06:47,008 --> 00:06:52,002 we found that it didn't work well. So basically we've found 84 00:06:52,002 --> 00:06:56,003 with the calf strain exactly the same thing that the NIH researchers had found 85 00:06:56,003 --> 00:07:00,002 with a simian strain, a monkey strain. That the protection against rotavirus could occur 86 00:07:00,002 --> 00:07:04,003 with non-human strains, but it was inconsistent in it's ability to protect. 87 00:07:04,003 --> 00:07:08,006 So it was really back to the drawing board. And this slide shows what 88 00:07:08,006 --> 00:07:13,000 the drawing board was. We, we needed to determine which rotavirus proteins were responsible 89 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,003 for evoking virus specific neutralizing antibodies. In other words, 90 00:07:17,003 --> 00:07:21,007 what rotovirus proteins induce protective immunity and which rotovirus proteins 91 00:07:21,007 --> 00:07:26,000 were responsible for viral virulence. So it is the way that you make any vaccine. 92 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:30,000 You're really trying, you're trying to separate out the part of the, in this case, the virus 93 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,002 that is pathogenic, that is disease causing from the part of the virus 94 00:07:34,002 --> 00:07:38,001 that induces an immune response which is protective. Hoping in this case 95 00:07:38,001 --> 00:07:42,004 that the genes that are responsible for making the proteins that cause disease are different 96 00:07:42,004 --> 00:07:46,008 from the genes that are required to make the proteins 97 00:07:46,008 --> 00:07:51,000 that induce a protective immune response. So just a brief word about rotavirus structure, 98 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,000 the cartoon of the rotavirus particle is shown on the right and there are two proteins 99 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:00,008 to focus on. One is the protein called VP4 which stands for 100 00:08:00,008 --> 00:08:05,006 viral protein four. It's the viral protein that's responsible for 101 00:08:05,006 --> 00:08:10,004 binding to cells before it infects them. It's also called a P protein, 102 00:08:10,004 --> 00:08:15,001 or a P serotype and you'll see what I mean by that in a second. P, just because it's sensitive to 103 00:08:15,001 --> 00:08:20,000 proteases. Proteases are proteins that cleave proteins. 104 00:08:20,002 --> 00:08:24,006 and this, in order for the virus actually to enter the cell that VP4 needs to be 105 00:08:24,006 --> 00:08:29,000 cleaved to two smaller proteins called VP5 and VP8. The other protein defunct to 106 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:33,005 focus on is called VP7, which just stands for Viral Protein seven. And that's kind 107 00:08:33,005 --> 00:08:37,005 of a coat protein. But again, on the surface of the virus. And it it's a 108 00:08:37,005 --> 00:08:41,009 glyco-protein, so it's also called a, a G protein. I'll talk about that also in a second; 109 00:08:41,009 --> 00:08:46,003 so, two surface proteins, VP4 and VP7. 110 00:08:46,003 --> 00:08:50,001 And as a general rule when you're trying to protect against viral infections, you want to try and make 111 00:08:50,001 --> 00:08:54,003 antibodies to the surface of a virus; so to this, surface of a bacteria. 112 00:08:54,003 --> 00:08:58,003 Because that would then prevent the virus or bacteria from binding to a cell, entering a cell 113 00:08:58,003 --> 00:09:02,006 and causing disease. It's sort of a universal truth of vaccines. You're really, 114 00:09:02,006 --> 00:09:07,008 for the most part, trying to prevent virus-cell binding. 115 00:09:07,008 --> 00:09:14,002 Then, the rotavirus genome consists of eleven separate segments of double stranded RNA. 116 00:09:14,002 --> 00:09:20,009 And if you look at sort of, well, column A if you take the virus 117 00:09:20,009 --> 00:09:26,000 and you disrupt it with a, just a detergent and then you put it on top of, 118 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:31,004 so called, poly-acrylamide gel which is just a plastic mesh and then you take the virus 119 00:09:31,004 --> 00:09:36,009 and you run it down with an electric current. You can actually separate those individual 120 00:09:36,009 --> 00:09:42,003 double strained RNA segments in.. by size. So you can see the, the so called electropherotype of 121 00:09:42,003 --> 00:09:46,007 of virus A. And virus A and virus B are different. 122 00:09:46,007 --> 00:09:51,003 They're different strains therefore they have different ways in which their double-stranded RNA 123 00:09:51,003 --> 00:09:56,000 segments migrate in this gel. Now, if you take those two 124 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:59,093 viruses and you co-infect cells at the same time, 125 00:09:59,093 --> 00:10:04,002 you find that about 20 percent of the time, the progeny viruses that are generated 126 00:10:04,002 --> 00:10:08,005 actually are reassorted viruses. Which is to say that they're a combination of the two viruses. 127 00:10:08,005 --> 00:10:12,009 So you can see at the virus strain on the right has all of its genes from 128 00:10:12,009 --> 00:10:17,008 virus A, and only one gene from virus B. 129 00:10:17,008 --> 00:10:22,006 Well, if virus A and virus B are different within their capacity to cause disease in experimental animals, 130 00:10:22,006 --> 00:10:27,002 in our case, we looked at mice, then you can figure out the genetics of virulence. 131 00:10:27,002 --> 00:10:31,005 If those two strains are different with regard to their ability to induce 132 00:10:31,005 --> 00:10:36,005 neutralizing antibodies in the serum, then, you can say - - you can figure out the 133 00:10:36,005 --> 00:10:41,006 genetics of serotype which is to say that, that you can distinguish viruses based on 134 00:10:41,006 --> 00:10:46,004 their ability to evoke antibodies which neutralize specific strains or specific serotypes. 135 00:10:46,004 --> 00:10:50,008 And so, again, by making these reassortant viruses as you see on the right, 136 00:10:50,008 --> 00:10:55,003 you can figure out the genetics of virulence. You can figure out the genetics of 137 00:10:55,005 --> 00:11:00,001 serotype, or said another way, neutralization phenotype, or said another way, 138 00:11:00,001 --> 00:11:04,004 just the genes responsible for evoking protective antibodies. 139 00:11:04,004 --> 00:11:09,004 So to make a long story short, to sort of summarize ten years worth of work in one slide, 140 00:11:09,004 --> 00:11:13,007 it's actually a little depressive. You can't do that, but to summarize ten years 141 00:11:13,007 --> 00:11:17,009 of work in one slide, what we found was that each of those two surface proteins 142 00:11:17,009 --> 00:11:22,002 evoked neutralizing antibodies or said another way, each of those two different proteins 143 00:11:22,002 --> 00:11:27,001 evoked or determined serotype. So in a sense then, then rotaviruses actually 144 00:11:27,001 --> 00:11:31,006 are very similar to the influenza viruses, which also are distinguished on the basis 145 00:11:31,006 --> 00:11:36,000 of two surface proteins. And that's the way that those viruses are characterized. 146 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:40,004 H1N1, H5N1, the so-called bird flu. 147 00:11:40,004 --> 00:11:44,007 That's the way that the influenza viruses are characterized and that's the way the rotaviruses are characterized also. 148 00:11:44,007 --> 00:11:49,000 So, G1P1, for example. The addition studies that were done 149 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,003 by researchers at the National Institutes of Health specifically headed by 150 00:11:53,003 --> 00:11:57,007 Taka Hoshino as well as researchers in our lab determined ultimately 151 00:11:57,007 --> 00:12:02,001 that there were four genes that were required for virulence. So by doing studies in mice, we showed that really 152 00:12:02,001 --> 00:12:06,006 there were four different genes, all of which were required for virulence. 153 00:12:06,006 --> 00:12:11,000 Well, this was good news. It meant that you could include the genes, the human genes 154 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:15,002 that were responsible for invoking neutralizing antibodies, but as long as 155 00:12:15,002 --> 00:12:19,006 you didn't include all four that were responsible for virulence, then the virus wouldn't be virulent, 156 00:12:19,006 --> 00:12:24,003 or said another way, the virus shouldn't cause disease. And this was advanced beyond Max Tyler. 157 00:12:24,003 --> 00:12:29,000 Remember we talked about Max Tyler in another lecture. And Max Tyler was the one working at 158 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,007 the Rockefeller Institute who showed that you could weaken viruses by 159 00:12:33,007 --> 00:12:38,004 serially passaging them in a cell culture. But it was done really in a blind way, in a sense that 160 00:12:38,004 --> 00:12:42,009 you would pass it in non-human cells like in his case, 161 00:12:42,009 --> 00:12:47,004 you pass the Yellow Fever virus in mouse, mouse embryo cells, or chicken embryo cells. 162 00:12:47,004 --> 00:12:52,000 And then he would take the virus out to see whether it was weak enough by testing it in people. 163 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,006 We, at Children's Hospital Philadelphia, at least had, 164 00:12:56,006 --> 00:13:00,009 we thought we had defined virulence genes, by doing studies in mice. 165 00:13:00,009 --> 00:13:04,008 But again, you know, these were studies in mice, you never really know 166 00:13:04,008 --> 00:13:09,000 until you test it in people. And so, you have to go very slowly, when you test in people, 167 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,000 starting in adults, who you know have already been exposed to rotavirus and have antibodies 168 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:17,001 And then working your way down, ultimately to children who hadn't been exposed to the virus. 169 00:13:17,001 --> 00:13:21,001 So this was reassuring, but, you really never know until 170 00:13:21,001 --> 00:13:25,006 you do the right kind of studies. So the first rotavirus vaccine 171 00:13:25,006 --> 00:13:30,004 was, that was out there was called a Rota shield. It was again the NIH reserchers 172 00:13:30,004 --> 00:13:35,007 had taken their simian strain, their so called research rotavirus or RRV strain. 173 00:13:35,007 --> 00:13:40,007 And they had it re-assorted it into that genes that determine 174 00:13:40,007 --> 00:13:45,005 human serotype, so called G1, G2, and G4. 175 00:13:45,007 --> 00:13:50,008 They assumed that the RRV strain was similar not to the human G3, so there really there are 176 00:13:50,008 --> 00:13:55,006 sort of four major human G serotypes; G1, G2, G3, G4 and [inaudible] take this, 177 00:13:55,006 --> 00:14:00,003 this simian monkey strain. You can then reassort into those human genes that 178 00:14:00,003 --> 00:14:05,002 determine those serotypes. And so that's what was done with this original vaccine. 179 00:14:05,002 --> 00:14:10,000 And, and the vaccine was on the, was actually brought onto the market in August 1998. 180 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:15,000 It was on the market for about 10 months in the United States when this headline 181 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:20,000 was published in a CDC journal called Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 182 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:24,009 It was called intussusception among recipients of rotavirus vaccine in the United States, 183 00:14:24,009 --> 00:14:29,006 1998 to 1999. And what had happened was, intussusception 184 00:14:29,006 --> 00:14:34,002 is caused when the small intestine sort of folds into itself, or invaginates into itself 185 00:14:34,002 --> 00:14:38,009 and gets stuck. And when that happens, there can be a critical loss 186 00:14:38,009 --> 00:14:43,005 of blood supply to the intestine mucosal surface, which can cause intestinal mucosal surface damage 187 00:14:43,005 --> 00:14:48,004 and bleeding. In addition, because the intestine has living on its surface, 188 00:14:48,004 --> 00:14:52,008 trillions, literally, of bacteria. Those bacteria can then enter 189 00:14:52,008 --> 00:14:57,004 the bloodstream and cause bloodstream infection, which can be overwhelming, even resulting 190 00:14:57,004 --> 00:15:01,006 in death. So intussusception is an important medical problem. It's a serious 191 00:15:01,006 --> 00:15:06,000 medical problem often requiring hospitalization. And so, the fact that, 192 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:10,004 the, the that headline appeared in the morbidity mortality weekly report was 193 00:15:10,004 --> 00:15:14,006 really worrisome. And it was based on reports to VAERS, we've talked about in 194 00:15:14,006 --> 00:15:19,003 another talk, the so-called Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. 195 00:15:19,003 --> 00:15:23,007 This is a system that's passively, it's sort of a passive reporting system 196 00:15:23,007 --> 00:15:27,008 to the FDA and the CDC. If you're worried that, a vaccine 197 00:15:27,009 --> 00:15:33,006 could have caused a particular event, adverse event, then you can report it to this system. And then there 198 00:15:33,006 --> 00:15:35,005 were fifteen cases of intussusception were reported 199 00:15:35,006 --> 00:15:39,005 to various following Rotashield. What was worrying, worrisome, was that 200 00:15:39,005 --> 00:15:43,007 thirteen of those fifteen cases occurred after the first dose, which sort of lends to 201 00:15:43,007 --> 00:15:47,002 the biological plausibility of the fact that these two things were causally associated. 202 00:15:47,002 --> 00:15:51,002 Eleven of those thirteen cases, again, recur within seven days of vaccine administration, 203 00:15:51,002 --> 00:15:55,001 which is what you would expect if the vaccine was causing it. An eighth of those thirteen cases 204 00:15:55,001 --> 00:15:58,009 occurred in children 2-3 months of age. 205 00:15:58,009 --> 00:16:03,001 Now, intussusception occurs anyway. Intussusception occurs in children before there was a Rotavirus vaccine. 206 00:16:03,001 --> 00:16:07,004 But, it really occurred primarily in the 5-9 month-old. So the thinking was that 207 00:16:07,004 --> 00:16:11,006 now that we were seeing it in 2-3 months of age, when these kids were getting vaccinated, 208 00:16:11,006 --> 00:16:15,009 that again lent the fact at least the fact that this notion, 209 00:16:15,009 --> 00:16:20,003 that the, that the vaccine was causing the intussusception was biologically plausible. 210 00:16:20,834 --> 00:16:24,342 So the way that you answer this, the question, is to do the kinds of study 211 00:16:24,419 --> 00:16:26,888 that were done by Trudy Murphy and her co-workers, and reported in 212 00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:29,719 the New England Journal of Medicine. The CDC really took the lead on this. 213 00:16:29,750 --> 00:16:33,481 Jeff Koplan, who was the head of the CDC at the time, stopped doing some other projects, 214 00:16:35,253 --> 00:16:38,007 lot of money into this, to see whether or not that association between 215 00:16:38,007 --> 00:16:42,003 intussusception and vaccination was temporal, or causal. 216 00:16:42,003 --> 00:16:46,002 And, and you gotta take your hat off to this group. That the minute that they saw something 217 00:16:46,002 --> 00:16:50,001 that might have been problematic, they, they immediately addressed it, and found that 218 00:16:50,001 --> 00:16:54,002 if you received the rotavirus vaccine, and your first dose was 219 00:16:54,002 --> 00:16:58,002 you received your first dose at 1-2 months of age, 220 00:16:58,002 --> 00:17:02,002 or 3-5 months of age, or 5-8 months of age, that within a week of getting that vaccine, 221 00:17:02,002 --> 00:17:06,003 you had a 25 to 30 fold increased risk of getting the disease -- 222 00:17:06,003 --> 00:17:09,007 getting the intussception than if you didn't get the vaccine. 223 00:17:09,007 --> 00:17:13,004 Similarly, there was a statistically signifigant increase, if you, within 2 weeks of getting the vaccine, 224 00:17:15,006 --> 00:17:17,007 but not greater than 2 weeks after getting the vaccine. 225 00:17:17,007 --> 00:17:21,008 So this was supportive of the notion that, the rot-, the intussusception following Rotashield vaccine 226 00:17:21,008 --> 00:17:26,001 was not a, just a temporal association, but was, in fact, a causal association 227 00:17:26,001 --> 00:17:30,002 that the vaccine actually was causing this intestinal blockage. 228 00:17:30,002 --> 00:17:34,007 For that reason, then the company had actually decided to 229 00:17:34,007 --> 00:17:40,004 withdraw the, the their vaccine from the market and, and that, that was done after 230 00:17:40,004 --> 00:17:45,007 the vaccine had been on the market for about ten months. Now, you could argue 231 00:17:45,007 --> 00:17:51,002 that there is a difference between, relative risk and attributable risk. 232 00:17:51,002 --> 00:17:56,007 Relative risk, as we saw, was 25 to 30 to one, following that vaccine. 233 00:17:56,007 --> 00:18:00,009 But the real risk or the attributed risk was roughly 1 per 10,000. So let me try and 234 00:18:00,009 --> 00:18:04,009 give you an example of that. That if I am, if I walk across the street in front of my 235 00:18:04,009 --> 00:18:08,008 house, I have a certain risk of being hit by a car. That would, no doubt, be much 236 00:18:08,008 --> 00:18:13,002 greater than the risk than if I was just standing. On the, the just in my doorstep 237 00:18:13,002 --> 00:18:17,000 in front of my house. And so the relative risk would be very high. It could be a 238 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,006 1,000 to 1. But still the attributable risk is, is very low. I mean, I cross the 239 00:18:20,006 --> 00:18:24,004 street in front of my house all the time and don't get hit by a car. That was true here. 240 00:18:24,004 --> 00:18:28,001 So while the, the relative risk was high, the attributable risk was pretty low. 241 00:18:28,001 --> 00:18:31,006 Still 1 in 10,000 recipients. And you could argue that if you took a 242 00:18:31,006 --> 00:18:35,003 theoretical million children who either did or didn't get the vaccine. Far more 243 00:18:35,003 --> 00:18:39,001 who didn't get the vaccine would have been hospitalized. And, and then frankly, even 244 00:18:39,001 --> 00:18:43,001 five to ten fold more would have died from not getting the vaccine. Because Rotavirus 245 00:18:43,001 --> 00:18:47,000 kills children even in this, in the United States. But I think at the time, the 246 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,009 disease wasn't perceived to be terribly dangerous. Certainly no one wanted to get 247 00:18:51,009 --> 00:18:57,000 something that you knew could have caused intus susception and there was one child 248 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:02,001 who died of intussusception following this vaccine even though six to twelve will die 249 00:19:02,001 --> 00:19:07,002 from not having received the vaccine among a million children. So you could have made 250 00:19:07,002 --> 00:19:12,002 the argument that even with that adverse event that still the benefits outweigh the 251 00:19:12,002 --> 00:19:16,009 risk, but that's not the way that the played out at the time and so the vaccine 252 00:19:16,009 --> 00:19:21,000 was taken off the market. Now, I think the saddest part of this, and the biggest 253 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:25,001 tragedy, is that there was a World Health Organization meeting held in February of 254 00:19:25,001 --> 00:19:29,000 2000. So it was about four months after the withdrawal of Rotashield from the 255 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,006 United States, where the company was great. I mean, wyeth made this vaccine, 256 00:19:32,006 --> 00:19:36,005 stood up and said, we, we, we'll give you the virus, the vaccine strains. We will 257 00:19:36,005 --> 00:19:40,007 give you, the you know, the technology on how to make it. We will give you the cell 258 00:19:40,007 --> 00:19:44,001 substrate on which we grew this, thisvaccine. We'll help you build the 259 00:19:44,001 --> 00:19:48,001 buildings. Because the Wyeth knew that they had a technology that now they were 260 00:19:48,001 --> 00:19:52,003 not giving to American children. They could've saved. As many as 2000 lives a 261 00:19:52,003 --> 00:19:56,008 day in the developing world. But, But count-, country after country stood up and 262 00:19:56,008 --> 00:20:00,004 said, you know, if it's not safe for our children, it not - if it's not safe for 263 00:20:00,004 --> 00:20:04,001 America's children, then it's not safe for our children, therefore, we're not going 264 00:20:04,001 --> 00:20:07,007 to, to use it. Even though the risk benefit ratio was obviously very different 265 00:20:07,007 --> 00:20:11,003 in the developing world. So, I think the tragedy was, if in this whole story, is 266 00:20:11,003 --> 00:20:14,009 that for seven years, a technology that could have saved a lot of lives in the 267 00:20:14,009 --> 00:20:18,008 developing world, and certainly even have prevented a lot of suffering in the United 268 00:20:18,008 --> 00:20:22,009 States, sat on the shelf. And so, two other, companies actually stepped forward 269 00:20:22,009 --> 00:20:27,001 to make vaccines. One of them was Merkin Company, who, who, in collaboration with, 270 00:20:27,003 --> 00:20:31,004 researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, developed this, this next 271 00:20:31,004 --> 00:20:35,005 vaccine. And again, it used that bovine strain that I talked to you about, that's, 272 00:20:35,005 --> 00:20:39,008 that's called iii.'Cause we certainly knew that, that virus was safe in children. It 273 00:20:39,008 --> 00:20:43,009 just didn't seem to be, consistently protective enough to make it a vaccine. 274 00:20:43,009 --> 00:20:48,006 And so what was done, was the same thing really that was done with the RotaShield 275 00:20:48,006 --> 00:20:53,003 vaccine, which was to make a series of reassortant vaccines. And again, we talked 276 00:20:53,003 --> 00:20:58,003 about reassortants to some extent in the in the history of vaccines talk. That 277 00:20:58,003 --> 00:21:03,002 included those human genes that, that represented those, the, the proteins that 278 00:21:03,002 --> 00:21:08,001 were responsible for, for a serotypes G1, G2, G3 and G4, as well as one of the, the 279 00:21:08,001 --> 00:21:12,006 P serotypes, so called P1. So that's, that's what the RotaTeq vaccine was. It 280 00:21:12,006 --> 00:21:18,009 was given. As three doses by mouth at two, four and six months of age to, to 281 00:21:18,009 --> 00:21:24,002 children, It's This. Sorry, the, the, the dose was 1.6 *ten^6 plaque forming units* 282 00:21:24,002 --> 00:21:28,007 per strain. A plaque form unit is, is just when you test a virus. In cell culture, 283 00:21:28,007 --> 00:21:33,001 the virus can reproduce themselves, and destroy cells, as well as cells in the 284 00:21:33,001 --> 00:21:37,005 immediate area, which causes this sort of plaque in the, in the or hole in the 285 00:21:37,005 --> 00:21:41,007 culture, and that's how you determine that. But the important to know here is 286 00:21:41,007 --> 00:21:46,002 that it was three doses given by mouth at two, four, and six months of age. There 287 00:21:46,002 --> 00:21:50,005 were some advantages of the bovine strain, because the cows are not as close 288 00:21:50,007 --> 00:21:55,002 phylogenetically to humans as primates are. The there actually was a. To provide, 289 00:21:55,003 --> 00:21:59,005 less, for instance of sort of these common less adverse events because of our 290 00:21:59,005 --> 00:22:03,007 assisted reproduced self as well. So I think the important thing here is, is that 291 00:22:03,007 --> 00:22:07,009 the vaccine was tested in, in more than 70,000 children prospectively, in eleven 292 00:22:07,009 --> 00:22:12,002 countries It took four years to do this study, it probably cost about 350 million 293 00:22:12,002 --> 00:22:16,005 dollars to do the definitive phase three trial of this vaccine. And what was found 294 00:22:16,005 --> 00:22:20,005 was that the vaccine was capable of preventing any roto virus disease being 295 00:22:20,005 --> 00:22:24,007 mild, moderate or severe disease at about 74%, which is roughly the equivalent of 296 00:22:24,007 --> 00:22:27,063 what natural infection capacity is to protect against roto virus disea se. 297 00:22:27,063 --> 00:22:33,000 Disease, Efficacy against severe disease was 98%, against rotavirus 298 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,007 hospitalizations 94%, against rotavirus doctor visits 86%, and there was no 299 00:22:37,007 --> 00:22:42,004 clinically significant increase in fever. Or vomiting or diarrhea. Listlessness, 300 00:22:42,004 --> 00:22:46,006 lethargy, or poor feeding versus placebo. So, the vaccine appeared to be safe and 301 00:22:46,006 --> 00:22:50,009 appeared to be effective. Importantly, regarding [inaudible], within fourteen 302 00:22:50,009 --> 00:22:55,000 days of any dose, there was only one case of in the vaccine group a one in the 303 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,002 placebo group. Within 42 days of any dose, [inaudible] six, six weeks of any dose, 304 00:22:59,002 --> 00:23:03,005 there was six in the vaccine group, five in the placebo group. And within one year 305 00:23:03,005 --> 00:23:07,003 again, twelve in the vaccine and fifteen in the placebo group. So, again, the 306 00:23:07,003 --> 00:23:11,005 vaccine didn't appear to, to cause [inaudible] or prevent [inaudible]. And so 307 00:23:11,005 --> 00:23:15,009 those were, And, and we also have post licensure data that I'll talk about a 308 00:23:15,009 --> 00:23:19,008 little later. [inaudible] has been introduced, this vaccine has been 309 00:23:19,008 --> 00:23:24,002 introduced into the developing world. Specifically in Nicaragua, Bangladesh, 310 00:23:24,002 --> 00:23:28,009 Vietnam, Ghana, Mali. And just within this past week Rwanda. And that's a tribute to 311 00:23:28,009 --> 00:23:33,005 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who have made that possible. you know, the, 312 00:23:33,005 --> 00:23:37,008 although the World Health Organization certainly considers all the [inaudible]. 313 00:23:37,009 --> 00:23:41,006 Caused by rotavirus important and, and worthy of prevention. The World Health 314 00:23:41,006 --> 00:23:45,002 Organization doesn't really have the money to introduce this vaccine in the 315 00:23:45,002 --> 00:23:49,002 developing world and, and frankly or the countries, the countries also don't have 316 00:23:49,002 --> 00:23:53,002 the money. So, that Bill and Melinda Gates choose to spend their money by preventing 317 00:23:53,002 --> 00:23:57,001 a disease which causes a lot of suffering and death in the developing world is a 318 00:23:57,001 --> 00:24:00,007 tribute to them. Now there's, there's another rotavirus vaccine that, that's, 319 00:24:00,009 --> 00:24:05,000 that's developed, that was developed by researchers at Children's Hospital in 320 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:09,000 Cincinnati specifically Dick Ward and David Bernstein, using the more classic 321 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,001 way of making a vaccine, a live weakened. Vaccine, which was to take the vi rus, and 322 00:24:13,001 --> 00:24:17,006 serially [inaudible] in non human cells as a way of attenuating it. This vaccine is 323 00:24:17,006 --> 00:24:21,005 given as two doses by mouth, which is an advantage. It's one fewer dose. At two, 324 00:24:21,005 --> 00:24:25,008 two to three, and then four to five months of age. It's given at a somewhat lesser, 325 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,008 dose. Because the virus is, is a human virus. So therefore, somewhat better at 326 00:24:29,008 --> 00:24:33,006 reproducing itself in the intestine than the bovine strain was. The, the 327 00:24:33,006 --> 00:24:37,002 researchers at children's hospital in Cincinatti, in collaboration with 328 00:24:37,002 --> 00:24:41,004 GlaxoSmithKline, did a study of, 60, more than 63,000 infants who were given this 329 00:24:41,004 --> 00:24:45,005 vaccine at two to four months of age. And the studies were performed in Latin 330 00:24:45,005 --> 00:24:50,005 American countries as well as Finland and the vaccine worked very well, preventing a 331 00:24:50,005 --> 00:24:54,008 severe disease about a, [inaudible] an efficacy rate of 85 percent and preventing 332 00:24:54,054 --> 00:24:59,005 80, hospitalizations at a rate of about 85%. Rotateq. Was introduced in the United 333 00:24:59,005 --> 00:25:03,006 States in 2006. Rotarix in the United States in 2008. Although Rotarix was 334 00:25:03,006 --> 00:25:08,001 introduced in the developing world also in 2-, 2006. And, what we found was that. 335 00:25:08,003 --> 00:25:12,004 there was a 50, even in the US, 50 percent immunization rate causing 80 to 90 percent 336 00:25:12,004 --> 00:25:17,000 reduction in hospitalization. So it's a there is her immunity that is being 337 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,060 induced by these two vaccines. So, so what about an [inaudible]. Why this, the Rota 338 00:25:21,060 --> 00:25:26,009 Virus vaccine, why did Rota shield cause an [inaudible] interest. There were data 339 00:25:26,009 --> 00:25:31,003 presented from Brazil, Mexico, Australia and the United States on October 340 00:25:31,003 --> 00:25:36,002 twenty-eighth, 2000 [inaudible] that show the [inaudible] was actually was a rare 341 00:25:36,002 --> 00:25:40,009 consequence Rota risk in Mexico and Australia. Not at the one in 10,000 level 342 00:25:40,009 --> 00:25:46,001 that was seen for Rota, Rota Shield. But, but more an attributable risk of one per 343 00:25:46,001 --> 00:25:50,006 60,000 or 90,000 doses. And also, for RotaTeq as well, intussusception was a 344 00:25:50,006 --> 00:25:55,004 rare consequence in Australia, with an attributable risk again between sort of, 345 00:25:55,004 --> 00:25:59,009 60,000 and 90,000 doses. So it now looks like all three Rotavirus vaccines, 346 00:25:59,009 --> 00:26:04,006 including Rotarix, which is simply an attenuated human Rotavirus strain, causes 347 00:26:04,006 --> 00:26:09,003 intussusceptio N. So it sort of causes us to re-evaluate why. Rotashield caused 348 00:26:09,003 --> 00:26:14,003 intussusception, I think the most likely reason is that natural rotavirus infection 349 00:26:14,003 --> 00:26:19,000 is also a rare cause of intussusception. So then the question becomes which is 350 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:23,004 rarer, Intussusception caused by. By the vaccine, or intussusception caused by the 351 00:26:23,004 --> 00:26:26,009 disease. Because remember the vaccine prevents the disease. So if, if 352 00:26:26,009 --> 00:26:31,004 intussusception caused by the, the vaccine is more common than intussusception caused 353 00:26:31,004 --> 00:26:35,008 by the. The, the natural virus, then, the rates of interception should go up in 354 00:26:35,008 --> 00:26:40,003 countries that use the vaccine. Conversely if, if interception caused by the. The 355 00:26:40,003 --> 00:26:44,000 natural virus is more common, then [inaudible] caused by the vaccine, given 356 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,004 that the vaccine prevents natural infection. Then as you introduce the 357 00:26:47,004 --> 00:26:51,001 vaccine, rates of [inaudible] should, should go down. And sort of all of the 358 00:26:51,001 --> 00:26:55,000 evidence to date, is it certainly raises the [inaudible], the [inaudible] seem to 359 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:59,000 be going up, and if anything they seem to be going down. A little. So I think that 360 00:26:59,001 --> 00:27:03,002 what we've learned is that in the long run, that [inaudible] is probably is a 361 00:27:03,002 --> 00:27:07,003 consequence of the natural infection. It's probably to some extent prevented by, by 362 00:27:07,003 --> 00:27:11,001 vaccination. I mean it's interesting to know what, what, what had happened if we 363 00:27:11,001 --> 00:27:15,001 had found out that [inaudible] shield had caused [inaudible]. This is after four 364 00:27:15,001 --> 00:27:18,004 years after it had already been introduced. Because now, we know that 365 00:27:18,004 --> 00:27:22,004 rotarix and rota, rotatech are two more recent vaccines for saving lives in the 366 00:27:22,004 --> 00:27:26,001 developing world are certainly preventing hospitalizations and suffering in 367 00:27:26,001 --> 00:27:29,009 developed countries like the United States. I wondered whether we would have 368 00:27:29,009 --> 00:27:34,002 still made the same decision rotashield that we found out that it was a rare cause 369 00:27:34,002 --> 00:27:37,058 of [inaudible] four years later. So I'll stop right there and thank you for your atte