Your vaccine questions deserve real answers | Kizzmekia Corbett | Your Body on Tech

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Hey everyone, Sherrell Dorsey here. This year on TED Tech, we've dug deep into ideas that are changing our world. But over the next few weeks, I want to turn the focus into how technology is changing ourselves. To do this, I'm enlisting the help of my colleagues from the TED podcast world. Journalist and TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi took over the TED Talks Daily feed earlier this year.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00] She produced a special series examining how our digital habits and changing technologies are rewiring our minds and our bodies. Over the next few weeks, you'll be hearing from Manoush and the speakers she curated at this year's TED conference. Today, Manoush chats with immunologist and TED fellow Kizzmekia Corbett, who co-developed the first COVID-19 vaccine to enter clinical trials,

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00] and what she learned about making a groundbreaking vaccine in today's world. I'd love to know what you think about the series and our show in general, so feel free to leave us a review or a Spotify comment. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_03] You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. Hello, I am Manoush Zomorodi. I am a journalist, author, two-time TED speaker. You may know my voice because I host the TED Radio Hour podcast over on NPR.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_03] This week, I am taking over for Elise Hu with a little something special, a series of episodes all about how you can live a healthier life in our high-tech era. So why me? Well, because I had the honor of guest curating a session at the recent TED 2026 conference, and I focused on my obsession, which is tech, the human body, and what is keeping us human in this digital age.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_03] Every day this week, we are bringing you one of these talks from my session, followed by a conversation with that speaker to go deeper. Today, Kizzmekia Corbett. She is a viral immunologist at the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, who served as scientific lead on the Moderna COVID vaccine. So this vaccine was developed in a world-record-breaking 66 days.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_03] But Kismikia is really candid about what she and her team did wrong when it came to rolling out the vaccine to the public, many of whom were skeptical.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01] And the truth of the matter is that vaccinologists like myself had long ignored this population of people who just were not going to take vaccines for one reason or the other. We were too busy publishing our data in world-renowned journals, kind of talking to ourselves.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_03] So how do we build back the public's trust in science and medicine, especially considering the recent outbreaks of Hantavirus and Ebola? What is the role of the people making the vaccines in connecting with the people who don't believe that what she does is even legitimate? Language Kismikia has decided matters a lot. This was something she learned when she went on a date with the guy who eventually became her husband.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_03] When he told her he wasn't so sure about how he felt about vaccines, she had a bit of an epiphany.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01] I think it's appropriate that we answer hardcore questions with as much nuance and diligence as possible towards advancing science. But I also think that we should be answering to people. The truth of the matter is that curiosity and science exist right here as I look out of the window.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01] And inviting that type of curiosity from the community into science, particularly into vaccine development and understanding, can only make what we do better.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_03] Kismikia's fascinating personal story, how it relates to your health, and how we'll cope with the next pandemic. That's right after a quick break.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_04] And now our TED Talk and conversation of the day.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01] So in summer 2018, I went on a first date. Now in my early 30s, this of course was not my first date date. And so I wasn't expecting much except for some beers and tacos. That was until I was too many beers in and too deep in conversation. My question to him at the end of the night, do you plan to vaccinate your kids?

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01] His reply, sure, except for the flu vaccine. Because the flu vaccine has viruses in it. And every time I take it, I get sick. I guess he didn't realize that he was sitting across the table from a woman who had just invented a novel flu vaccine that was then slated for clinical trial. But at the same time, I was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01] And so normally that answer would have sent me packing on to my next first date. But I like this guy. And so I stayed and I answered a few questions after getting another beer. I told him that yes, the flu vaccine does have viruses in it. But those viruses are not alive. And so they technically cannot make you sick. Sure, you may feel a little groggy after getting the shot. But that's just a sign that your immune system is working.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_01] And I asked him a simple question. Did he know that there are 200 or more viruses that can cause flu-like symptoms or the common cold? Of course, he didn't have an answer, but that's what you get when you take a vaccinologist on a date. Surprisingly, he was not offended. And he asked me out on a second date. And I got more than a second date out of this guy.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01] I got my first understanding of what I now like to call vaccine inquisitiveness. It wasn't that he was just reluctant to get his self-vaccines or to get his future children vaccinated. It was that he had questions, concerns, misinformation buried deep down for which he needed an expert like myself to answer without scorn and without judgment.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01] Nevertheless, I went back into the lab and I did what I do, making vaccines. And then on December 31st of the next year, there was a report of a mysterious virus in Wuhan, China. It had sickened 27 people. This was a moment that my team had prepared for. You see, not only was I on the flu team, but I was also the scientific lead of the coronavirus vaccine team.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01] You see those orange proteins on the surface of this coronavirus? Those are called spike proteins, and those proteins are responsible for driving immunity. So we developed a spike protein with a small sequence change that made it an ideal vaccine candidate in case of a pandemic. And that's exactly what happened. In January of 2020, that virus that was circulating was deemed to be a coronavirus.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01] We joined forces with Moderna, and we promised ourselves that we were going to get in a phase one clinical trial in only 100 days. A purely scientific goal, by the way, but as I look back and I write this speech, I think there was probably a little bit of ego attached to it, too. But that's okay, because we did it.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, after countless hours in the lab, testing that vaccine in mice and monkeys and determining that it was safe and effective enough to go into humans, that vaccine, mRNA-1273, or what you now know to be called spike vax, went into a phase one clinical trial in only 66 days, a world record.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01] Now, at the end of the year, that vaccine was determined to be 94% effective against disease. So we were proud of ourselves, obviously. But what was the gut punch for me was that 20% of people were what the WHO would call vaccine hesitant. Now, vaccine hesitancy is not new. Even prior to the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was deemed to be one of top 10 global health threats.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01] Top 10 global health threats, and that is something that even me making vaccines was not going to fix. And the truth of the matter is that vaccinologists like myself had long ignored this population of people who just were not going to take vaccines for one reason or the other. We were too busy publishing our data in world-renowned journals, kind of talking to ourselves. And the other truth of the matter is that we made some honest communication mistakes during the pandemic.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01] And I'll be the first to just talk about myself. The first time I got on TV, I said that the vaccine was going to curb transmission. And at that time, it did. But what I should have said is that over time, as the virus mutates, the vaccine may not be as good at curbing transmission. And then we should have taken just a little bit more care and tenderness to talk to people about the possibility of vaccine injury.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01] Even if vaccine injury didn't turn up in our clinical trials, there was always this possibility. And those types of stats didn't matter to someone who was reading headlines about vaccine injury and deciding whether they were going to get themselves or their loved ones vaccinated. You see, some people had questions and concerns that were genuinely valid. And some people actually had criticisms that were genuinely valid too.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01] Except for that one time the internet went ablaze when they said my hair was ugly on CNN. I'd like to think that I'm pretty cute. Seriously though. One of the major concerns was that we were moving too fast. And so I'm going to stand right here in the middle of this TED circle and say, there was so much research that was done prior to the pandemic. People studied coronavirus' basic biology.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01] The Nobel laureates studied how to make mRNA feasible to deliver medicines into the body. We even did our thing too. Nevertheless, all of that research pushed the coronavirus vaccine out quicker, safer, and more effective. All of that notwithstanding, some people still had questions that needed to be answered. Some people were still vaccine inquisitive. No, they were not anti-vax. And no, they weren't even anti-science.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01] They were unconvinced. And it was our job as scientists to make them convinced. Except that failed communication lingered on. And I'm afraid that maybe some of that failed communication is the reason why today we have a rise in vaccine refusal. Kindergarteners are showing up to kindergarten without their full vaccine regimens. Measles is on the rise in many communities.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01] And measles, by the way, is a vaccine-preventable disease. And for me, that's really unfortunate because I know that there are 23 viral families that have the potential to infect humans. So it's not a question of whether there will be another pandemic. It's a matter of when. And so I guess I'm lucky because I will always have a job.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01] But as a vaccine inventor at Harvard University, my lab studies how to make nanoparticles or small protein balls into vaccines. We put viral proteins on the surfaces of those nanoparticles kind of in a click-and-bait way with small linkers that allow us to drive those viral proteins directly to the cells in the immune system that we need to make ideal vaccines for pandemics. We can put just about any type of viral protein on the surface. Many of them at the same time.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_01] So that we can make vaccines that are hypothetically good against many viruses in one shop. Great. Vaccine technology is going to go on and on and on. But I like to believe that vaccine hesitancy does not have to go on and on and on with it. If researchers would just open their minds to vaccine inquisitiveness in the same way that we open our mind to scientific inquisitiveness. If community and science were to meet.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01] And that's not really that revolutionary. We already know that when community and science meet, science advances faster. Vaccine refusal turns into vaccine acceptance. Actually, when vaccine inquisitive meets a scientist on a date, it turns into a marriage.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01] But you know one thing about this is that my husband still has questions every single time we take our children to get their vaccines. And I still have to find the answers. Not just as a scientist, but now as a mother. Because I'm concerned about my children's safety. And my children's lives depend on it. Thank you.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_03] That was Harvard vaccine researcher Kizzmekia Corbett. And don't go away. Because in a minute, I ask Kizmekia the question I think most of us really need answered. If someone in our life is vaccine hesitant, what exactly should we say to them?

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_04] She has great advice.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_03] Kizze, like I realized I never asked you this on stage. But tell me a little bit about your path to becoming a vaccine researcher. Was it something you'd always wanted to do? Or did it sort of happen to you by surprise?

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01] I think it kind of happened to me based on my two interests in college. So I was a biology major. And I knew that I, even going into college, I knew that I wanted to do hardcore biology research. And I didn't really know what type of biology I wanted to study. And I think that's where learned experiences and internships came into play.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01] And so I had a sociology class, which I was kind of taking, quite frankly, as one would consider an easy elective. And it was so interesting to me. My professor was, her name is Dr. Kelly Moore. I hope she's listening. Hi. She was a sociology of health researcher. And so I got really intrigued by her research. And at that point, I realized that vaccines were really a way to merge my two interests.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_01] They have such a social impact. Even getting vaccines to people is, in so many ways, one can consider it a big sociology experiment, frankly. And then there's just kind of this really cool science behind the way that vaccines worked. So it kind of came to me by that. I let myself follow my interests.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_03] Can you be a little more specific? Like the sociology part, like what were you seeing that was happening in the world that was so sort of intriguing to you?

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, gosh. I'm saying this as I'm literally like looking outside of my home office onto my neighborhood, which, long story short, can be actually overlays with what I'm about to say now in that my sociology professor was doing a study. It's called Handles, Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity Across a Lifespan. It's this very huge longitudinal study, which means taking course over a very long period of time.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01] And the idea was that in very small spaces, really block by block, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, health outcomes from the same diseases can be drastically different as influence solely based on environment. So as data collectors, we went into the environments. We counted cigarette butts on the street.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01] We went into grocery stores and counted how much fresh produce they had, compared those things across neighborhoods. And so much research from that study over the years has basically showed that people living in different spaces have very different health outcomes. And for me, because it was really kind of one of the heights of the HIV pandemic, and I went to school in Baltimore,

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01] which has always been one of those cities where infectious diseases, particularly HIV, had some of the worst outcomes neighborhood by neighborhood. I thought there must be something we can do from a science perspective that would equalize the playing field. That thing, as I started to learn more about viruses and HIV in particular, would probably have to be vaccines.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_03] You became a big shot vaccine researcher. But when you got into researching vaccines, like, were you very familiar with people who were very hesitant, skeptical, scared of getting vaccines?

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, yeah. I mean, always. It's not that I had to even leave my family or my circle of friends to experience that. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Hillsborough, North Carolina, which is a very small town in North Carolina. I think just by the way that I grew up, where I grew up, and all the things that have happened from a medical perspective in history,

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01] vaccines have always had this connotation that they could be more harmful than they could be good for certain people. And so there is the science around vaccines, of course, that we hope to get to the point where people understand it more. And so they're able to understand how vaccines work for the betterment of your health.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01] But then there's also kind of this sociology perspective that is how can we help to build trust around vaccines such that we can engage people in a way that increases uptake?

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_03] I'm always just curious, like, what do people typically say? Do they say, well, you can't trust doctors? Or is there a particular historical event that they, like, refer to? Never forget sort of thing. Like, what are some of the things that people say?

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01] You know, from the African-American community, there are historical events. There is the Tuskegee experiments. There is the Henrietta Lacks cell story from Johns Hopkins. Once you strip trust from people, it's very difficult for you to build that back, especially when you're telling people that they need to take something for a disease that they don't even have yet, that they may not even get.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_01] But it's very hard for someone to trust that aspect of things. And so I try to just firstly just empathize with that. I mean, I've been doing vaccine research since I was 19 years old and placing myself in the shoes of people who have to hear that at least once a year. I mean, I think we get we are telling people in September, October every year they need to go get flu and COVID vaccines.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01] But then there are these other vaccines, too, that they are having to give their infants or, you know, as you get older, you get shingles, all of these things. And you're saying if you might get sick, this is going to help you. So there's the there's the historical trust issue in many communities. There is the lack of communication and lack of knowledge that people have around vaccines. There is the misinformation. I think that's becoming more and more apparent now, but it's not new. Right.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, the autism one might call it a debate. I do not. I think there's only one side to truth. Generally, the autism. Let's just call it story because that's what how it really has played out over the years has had a large influence, particularly on childhood vaccination.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_03] So that, I think, brings us to where you started your TED talk, which was, you know, you go on this date. The sky is really interesting. The tacos are really delicious. The beer is really cold. And you're digging each other. And then you started talking like, oh, well, so do you want to have kids someday? And then vaccines come up. Remind me what exactly he said to you about vaccines.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01] He said something to the tune of, yes, I plan to vaccinate my kids except for flu. And so I think, like, for me, that was kind of like a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Uh-huh. Oh, my goodness. Like, we have a major problem here. I'm sitting across a man who I still to this day consider to be much smarter than me. He has his PhD in educational psychology. So he studied children and all of these things.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01] And it's like, wow. But based on what you've told me, it sounds like you probably weren't that surprised. Or were you? I think I was. I honestly think I was surprised. And so the reason is because all of what I had heard before, I'd never come across someone who was classically educated. And I say that because I do not believe that degrees make you, quote unquote, educated. That's another TED Talk. Uh-huh.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01] But someone who was classically educated from a social perspective, you know, PhD holder who had these kinds of thoughts. The people that I'd experienced were, you know, people who were not classically educated, who may not have had the high-level science courses. Or, you know, for me even, like, I was exposed to a lab when I was 16 years old. And so I had this backdrop of how vaccines work.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01] And many people didn't have that. So I was shocked. I was, quite frankly, I was shocked. And this is going to sound maybe not the best. But the reason why I always ask that question, not always, but many times ask that question, especially with guys that I was maybe interested in having a future with, is that it helped me to weed out what I would have then considered to be just not smart. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So what was different this time then?

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01] I was being open-minded and he was fun. Why not?

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_03] It's interesting to me because there's this key moment where normally you would have written this guy off. But because you were in this open-minded sort of frame of mind, frame of reference, you slowed down and you took the time to sort of talk it out with him and be patient. And is that what sort of made you realize like, okay, my job is not only research, but it's communicating around the incredible research I do?

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_01] I always considered my job to be communication. I remember actually, I must have been only around 19 or 20. And again, I was working in an HIV vaccine research center. And I remember hearing an ad on the radio station in DC, very clearly a radio station that one would probably say mostly Black people would listen to.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_01] And I remember the ad was about joining HIV clinical trials from my center. But the voice was one that most Black people wouldn't resonate with. I believe it was just kind of this high-pitched, super like, super like, please join this trial voice. And I remember telling my boss at the time. Go ahead, say it. A really white voice. I remember telling my boss at the time, there's no way that anyone would join the clinical trial

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_01] after listening to that ad. So I always knew that communication was a part of it. What I didn't necessarily realize before that moment or heed, I would say, before that moment was that listening was the biggest part.

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_03] Interesting.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_01] Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I would normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_03] So before we get to the phrase that you sort of coined, vaccine inquisitiveness, can we just talk about the other phrases that are in circulation right now? So you've got people who are vaccine hesitant. You've got vaccine deniers. I recently had the experience of people who denied that you would need a vaccine because they denied the existence of COVID at all. It's a whole landscape, right?

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_03] There's not just one way of thinking about that vaccines are not something someone wants to take.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01] There are a few things that we have to understand. Let's take the science and vaccines out of it. Firstly, things exist on a scale. There's no black. There's no white. But the gray in-betweens are really what matters. And I think that's the same way that we should think about, quote unquote, vaccine hesitancy. When you think about someone who might be vaccine hesitant because they have so many different

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_01] reasons and because what might change their opinion around vaccines is so different, we really have to think of it on this sliding scale. And I use that phrase vaccine inquisitive to humanize the idea that it is okay to have questions and concerns around anything medically that could be happening to you, but in my case, particularly vaccines.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_01] And to be able to voice those concerns and questions openly and to be able to change your mind very freely around whether you would get vaccinated or get your loved ones vaccinated. And I think that that's really the first thing. The second thing is that words matter. Words matter. And to some, it might feel ridiculous. We no longer say homeless person, but we say unhoused.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_01] For people who might have mental illness or different levels of mental capacities or learning abilities, we say neurodivergent. Those types of things change the way that people view themselves, but it also changes the way that we view them.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_03] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. To me, the word inquisitive is very warm and inviting. It's saying you are an interested person. You are a curious person. You are a person who likes to learn instead of saying you are cautious and making choices out of fear.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_01] Yep. The truth of the matter is that curiosity and science exist right here as I look out of the window. Why are the leaves blowing in this direction and not the other? The sun shining here versus somewhere else. So at any point, you become a scientist in so many respects.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_01] And inviting that type of curiosity from the community into science, particularly into vaccine development and understanding can only make what we do better. Oh my gosh, do not tell hardcore vaccinologists this. Uh-huh. But I appreciate the COVID moment for that. Uh-huh.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_01] Because people were not scared to voice their opinions, to ask their questions online, to flood my DMs. Like, to think that you saw someone with a PhD in the moniker, you know, scientific leave coronavirus vaccine team at the National Institutes of Health. To think that you saw that person on CNN and came to their DMs and basically said, what the fuck? Like, I love that.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_01] Please, please, more of that, right? Because as scientists, we think of ourselves as owing other scientists answers. Sure, I think it's appropriate that we answer hardcore questions with as much nuance and diligence as possible towards advancing science. But I also think that we should be answering to people. And so that's why I welcome these conversations.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01] I welcome the difference in nuance because there is the nuance in, you know, why the vaccine works in mice this way versus that way, which is more of a nitty gritty scientific nuance. But then there is the nuance of how do you know that it works in Black people as well as everyone else? There is that kind of social nuance as well. We have to be able to justify our science on both sides.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_04] We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back in just a sec.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_03] What I appreciated was that in your talk, you admitted you showed a little bit of regret that you were so focused, so intent on creating this vaccine to deal with the coronavirus in record time that maybe you forgot some of these things because you were a little bit in the scientific bubble.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01] I've been trained since I was 19 to think about science strictly for the purpose of science without thinking about it dually for the purpose of science in society. And so I'm unlearning those things. What was going through my mind at the beginning of COVID was we have to save lives. We have to get this and these vaccines to people as quickly as possible.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_01] We would not have gone any slower with the science. The science is there. It's tight. It's legit. I mean, there were tens of thousands of people dying a day. There was no... I mean, we should have gone faster, frankly. So I will not ever regret that. But what I will always regret is that we didn't take our time with helping people to understand what was happening in real time. I did do a lot of what people consider to be science communication around the vaccines as

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01] that was happening. But I didn't understand the impact of that communication at the end of the day. I didn't realize that people would just simply not accept the vaccine at face value just because it was licensed or authorized. The way that I've changed my science is, quite frankly, not much. I'm still working to make vaccines with the idea that we're more than likely be another pandemic.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01] But I'm tender to the understanding that getting a vaccine quickly to people in the case of a pandemic or even before a pandemic is only part of the battle. What would you say? Okay, so I'm just going to say that there's no way with the current way that media happens that nuance can be fully explained in a way that benefits everyone. It's almost impossible. Like, my first TV slot was in April.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, the science had been going on for seven years at that point. Six or seven years. And I had two minutes to explain things. It's impossible. What I'm saying is that learning how to communicate nuance and also remind people that science is happening in real time, it's strategic and it has to be done in the future.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_01] I think one critical mistake of at least my own work around COVID and other coronaviruses is that we were publishing really good science for five or six years leading up into the pandemic. And we didn't talk about that science publicly until the pandemic struck at the end of 2019. Maybe because we thought people wouldn't be interested, maybe they wouldn't have been interested,

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01] but we should have at least tried. And I think the idea that we only talk about viruses and vaccines and all of this when it's happening, when the moment and the outbreak is happening, it helps to actually increase the skepticism. Because like, where did this come from? I think about that. If I were to put myself in someone else's shoes, oh my gosh, we have a new virus, a new type of vaccine, mRNA.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_01] These people get on TV every other day and say they're going to have it out to me by the end of the year in record speed. No one's ever done this before. Why wouldn't I be skeptical of that? And so I think we have a lot of work to do around keeping the lines of communication open.

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_03] Process, you're saying, has to be part of the communication. And part of that process is explaining that things like vaccine injuries are real because nothing is 100%.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01] Part of that communication is certainly explaining that vaccine injury can be real. That one should not be written off because they say, oh, I got this vaccine and XYZ happened to me. To say, there's no way that that could have happened to you. Or to put statistics with that. To say, well, in, you know, the billions of people that are getting this vaccine, it's not happening to them. So what you're experiencing is not real.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01] So those types of conversations I generally had written off. With the slight exceptions of some New England Journal of Medicine papers where you see a rare case of some disease. Very rarely are anecdotes acceptable from a scientific perspective. But the truth of the matter is that that's how people experience life. And also, that anecdote is the thing that sparks a lot of legitimate science.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_02] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I'm using just a hypothetical right now. Like someone in my lab could email me or text me and say, oh my God, look at this graph. Or look at this plot and like, look how this virus is glowing up in this cool cell. We've never seen this before. Uh-huh. Anecdote. If I were to say to that person in my lab, oh, that's foolish. That's never happened before. Well, duh.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_01] Everything that we are discovering every single day, no one has ever discovered it before. So to write off someone's personal anecdote because it doesn't go with the story or the mass amounts of data that we're collecting daily on vaccines. I don't even want to use the word, but dare I say anti- is that even anti- I think they might be anti-science.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Well, I mean, we are at this moment where there is a sort of wave of anti-science legislation happening, right? There's hundreds of bills being pushed in state houses attacking things like vaccines, but also milk safety and fluoride in the water.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_03] How do you think of this moment where, you know, you worked for the NIH, government-backed organization, but you're at a point where those are some of the very people who are attacking some of the work that you do?

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_01] The thing about all of these, what everything that's happening right now is it's not new. It's just public. There has always been like a consortium of people who thought about fluoride in the way that the current legislation might be bending towards denial of, you know, that fluoride is important or that is helpful, right?

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01] I think what we are experiencing is the media drag partly, but then also the fact that we have elected people who have different views than what we've had before. My perspective would be that it's unfortunate because my scientific understanding is different than the way that much of legislation and broad public view is turning right now. Super unfortunate. Super unfortunate.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_01] But I always like to think that science and understanding will eventually prevail. This time shall pass.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_03] I think people are starting to think about viruses again. Unfortunately, they've been in the news a lot. I'm thinking of hantavirus. I'm thinking of the Ebola outbreak. And as a scientist who wants to communicate what is possible and what is not possible and where the science is in terms of dealing with those outbreaks, can you give us your thoughts on what we need to know about these viruses?

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_01] What I want to come out of this conversation around viruses is that outbreaks are going to happen. The way that viruses live is by living inside of something else. Viruses cannot replicate on the surface of your computer keys. They might be there, but their entire job is to get inside of a cell and to make new viruses.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] And so when you hear about an outbreak, know one thing, firstly, is that that virus, obviously it existed. It wasn't like the cell, you know, started to make a virus out of thin air. So to say that it was new holistically would not be the correct way to go about it. It might be new to an organism, like the viruses that we're seeing that are new to humans,

[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_01] maybe have been seen very few in humans before or not in humans before, but they are not new. And there will always be a new outbreak because that is what viruses do to survive. Our job as we communicate around, quote unquote, new viruses is to firstly just always drill that into people's head.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_01] And I think that that understanding helps to remove some of the fear around the headline that can come next year at this time around another new virus. The second thing that is important to remember is that what happened with COVID was a series of very miraculous scientific feats.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm not talking about just in the moment from December 2019 and to the point of, you know, the pandemic essentially ending. I'm talking about everything that happened up to that point, that there was this slew of basic science around understanding coronaviruses, around understanding how messenger RNA or mRNA works that led to essentially really good vaccines in very short period of time.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01] No one, not even myself, can promise that that would happen. Shall there be another pandemic? For many viruses that have pandemic potential, a lot of very basic information is not necessarily known. So the other thing that these outbreaks, I think, remind me as a scientist is that there is a lot of work to be done to get us to the point where we would be ready if any of these viruses turn into a pandemic.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_01] And then the other thing is that we are in this place where we are so hyper aware of what can happen that we're forgetting that a lot of ducks have to be in the row for a virus to take off and spread like wildfire around the world. The virus has to be able to replicate in humans very efficiently. It has to be able to transmit from humans to human very efficiently.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_01] There has to be some level of cross-regional spread. Many outbreaks are oftentimes contained in a small region because it is not always convenient for the virus to hop on a plane and go somewhere else, so to speak. So those are the things, those are the takeaways that I want from these moments. Regional outbreaks will always happen.

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01] The makings of a pandemic take a lot from both a viral perspective, but then also from kind of a human perspective.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_03] Let's say there is another pandemic because we now have the imagination for it. There will be another pandemic. Okay. And in our lifetime?

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_01] Most statistics point to yes, in someone who would be in their 30s or 40s in their lifetime. Yes. And there will just be another pandemic. I mean, ever? Absolutely.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_03] You know, you talked about like having always known that there needed to be more communication about vaccines, but almost sort of not forgetting about it, but putting it aside during the heat of the first few months of COVID, racing to create the vaccine. Will you do things differently this time when and, well, when it happens?

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_01] I'm not sure I would volunteer to be in the forefront again, honestly. I purposely don't, you know, hop on TV to talk about current outbreaks in the same way that I would have for the COVID pandemic. I know that my voice is unique. I know that my perspective is important.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01] I liked that I had the view from literally being in the lab, doing the research, and then putting on a collar shirt and getting on TV at night. I felt like there was this almost kind of direct communication that few people really had the ability to.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_01] And so I would offer that each scientist or each company or whatever it may be that's working intensely towards moving vaccines to people in the next pandemic do that. So I'm not sure that that person would necessarily up front need to be me.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_03] So do you see your role more than as pushing the scientific community to communicate more rather than you being the person who does the communicating as well as the research?

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I see it both ways. And what I'm trying to do is to help people to understand that their concerns and their questions are valid, but then also to open the minds of scientists who would consider that only their science is important. That would consider getting the vaccine through to the point that it is authorized or licensed to be the holy grail and the only thing that really matters.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01] I do not believe that to be true. And I would want for other scientists to take that kind of dual responsibility on.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_03] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I am a vaccine believer, but I've realized I am also vaccine inquisitive in that I want to learn more. And so there, there's a meeting point right there, right? We can all be inquisitive. We can all.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01] Even myself. I would like to show you text messages at the beginning of every flu season or what now would be flu slash coronavirus season when people are saying, oh, should I get the vaccine? And I'm like, oh, let me go look. Let me go see what the data says. And it's, I mean, honestly, like these are my vaccines. The technology in many of these vaccines is in part my technology. I don't accept vaccines at face value either.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_01] I'm very curious about the data in real time. And I think that it's fair that everyone be.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_03] This was so great. Kismikia, thank you so much. Can I just say there's something that happens when you talk about your science that makes me have a little flutter.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_01] I get very excited about science. I can do without the other things. I know. The trick to tenure drives me insane. But the science, I love. I love the science.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_03] Clearly it's serving you well. Do what you love. Kismikia Corbett is a firecracker. And she's got to be. It is a lot to ask from scientists. They need to be in the lab. Forecasting the next pandemic. Developing new ways of combating disease nonstop. Constantly trying to get funding. And be the public face of their work.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_03] I recently experienced just how hard this can be at a conference where not only were there people there who were hesitant about the COVID vaccine. Some people didn't actually believe that the virus was a real thing. Pharmaceutical companies and the government had been in cahoots for decades, they posited. And every person needs to look out for themselves. This can be a particularly American perspective.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_03] And one that is making vaccine researchers' jobs even harder. And potentially putting millions of lives in jeopardy. But I really take Kismikia's point to heart. There's no other option than to keep being open-minded and open-hearted when it comes to talking about how we keep our families healthy and the role of innovation. The politics are complicated. The science is complex.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_03] But a single word like hesitant instead of skeptical can start to build back people's trust in each other. That was Kismikia Corbett at TED 2026. In conversation with me, Manoush Zomorodi. You can also watch Kismikia's full talk at TED.com. Thank you so much for being here. On the next episode, smart watches, smart rings, glucose monitors.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_03] People are wearing more technology than ever to monitor their health. But what can we actually do with all that information that we're collecting? The big expert on wearable devices and the future of personalized medicine. Join me and Stanford's Michael Snyder on tomorrow's show. That's it for today. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit TED.com slash curation guidelines. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from TED.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_03] This episode was produced by Matthew Cloutier and Lucy Little. It was edited by Alejandra Salazar with support from Sanaz Meshkenpour and me. Kismikia's talk was fact-checked by the TED research team. And our conversation was fact-checked by Matthew Cloutier. This episode was mixed by Xander Adams. The TED Talks Daily team includes Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Taubner, and Tansika Sungmarni Vong.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_03] With support from Daniela Ballarezzo, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Manchang, and Laini Lott. Special thanks to Sanaz Meshkenpour and my team at NPR's TED Radio Hour for all their help on this special takeover. And to my co-curator at TED 2026. A very special thank you to David Biello. You can hear more from these speakers on the TED Radio Hour with episodes coming out throughout the summer. I'm Manoush Zomorodi.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_03] I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea and conversation for your feed. Thank you so much for listening.