Gates Package — page 1051

And if they were cheap and long-lasting enough--a few pennies for a dose that lasts thirty days or more--it might make sense to use them to block seasonal respiratory infections. Every schoolchild could get a dose at the beginning of each month. You could even set up sniffing stations where people stop by every few weeks for another dose. There's some exciting work being done on blockers. The company Vaxart, for example, has produced promising data on an oral transmission blocker for flu and is working on one for COVID. On the whole, though, transmission blockers aren't getting nearly enough attention, given what a breakthrough they would be for new and existing diseases alike. Governments and companies need to invest a lot more in them, with a particular focus on making them affordable and practical in low-income countries as well as rich ones. *** None of these tools will matter, though, if people refuse to use them. Whenever I talk to someone about blockers or vaccines, whether it's a scientist, politician, or journalist, there's one subject hanging over everyone's heads: vaccine hesitancy. I imagine that someday we'll have to confront blocker hesitancy too. Researchers who are studying vaccine hesitancy have gained a few insights. One is that there isn't one single reason for it. Fear and suspicion are certainly factors. So are things like how much people trust the government and their ability to get information that's timely and accurate. Many Black Americans, for example, are generally skeptical of the government's good intentions when it comes to health, and understandably so. For forty years, the U.S. Public Health Service ran the infamous Tuskegee Study--a horrific experiment in which it looked at the