S8 Ep493: Gregory Zuckerman details Gail Smith's insect-based vaccine technology at Novavax and discusses how major pharmaceutical giants like Merck initially hesitated to join the pandemic race. 4
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | I found out I was pregnant and I didn't know what to do. |
| 0:03.2 | I was looking for options. |
| 0:04.7 | Then I found adoptions from the heart. |
| 0:06.8 | Adoptions from the heart advocates for you. |
| 0:09.5 | They'll explain all your options, help with housing, financial, and medical needs during pregnancy, |
| 0:15.2 | and empower you to make the right choice for you. |
| 0:18.2 | I didn't feel alone anymore. |
| 0:19.5 | I chose open adoption. |
| 0:22.0 | And when I see pictures of my daughter growing up, I know I made the right choice for you. I didn't feel alone anymore. I chose open adoption. And when I see pictures of my daughter growing up, I know I made the right choice for both of us. To learn more, visit |
| 0:27.8 | Adoptions from the heart.org. I'm John Bathurst. This is CBSI and the world with Gregory Zuckerman's, the Wall Street Journal, Special Correspondent, but the author of A New Book, A Shot to Save the World, the inside story of the life or death race for COVID-19 vaccine. |
| 0:51.5 | These are pursuits by big pharma, big personalities, simultaneously, not knowing in their |
| 0:57.9 | future in the beginning of 2020 will be a pandemic that is a global catastrophe that may or may not |
| 1:05.7 | be solvable. Right now we have a remedy what these men and women produce. Novavax is one company that Gregory |
| 1:14.7 | dubs at one point, the little company that couldn't. But before we get to Novavax, we need to spend |
| 1:21.2 | time with Gail Smith from North Dakota, a man who seems another genius, who seems self-taught, but his methodology is based on |
| 1:31.7 | insects, insect cells. How so, Gregory? Yeah, so Gail Smith's a fascinating guy, as you said, |
| 1:38.5 | from Little Town in North Dakota, and he becomes convinced that insect cells and insect viruses can actually be really |
| 1:46.4 | helpful you can create vaccines he realized not many people do at a time but insects and |
| 1:52.5 | humans are much more like than you know most people presume they both require oxygen they |
| 1:57.9 | both have there's some anatomical similarities. They both have, you know, |
| 2:01.3 | brains and hearts and reproductive organs. And he thought that if you could use an insect |
| 2:07.1 | virus, which are, as they call them, they call them roomy. In other words, there's room in there. |
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