Sarah Gilbert - Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus

We wrote this book together as a joint work, but each chapter is written either from Sarahs perspective or from Caths. For clarity, we have indicated the author of each chapter at the top of the page throughout the book.

Professor Sarah Gilbert is Professor of Vaccinology at the Jenner Institute within the University of Oxford. Having devoted her career to developing vaccines against infectious diseases, since January 2020 she has been the Oxford Project Leader for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Professor Gilbert has over 25 years of experience in the design and early development of new vaccines, and a commitment to increasing public understanding of science.

Dr Cath Green is Associate Professor in Chromosome Dynamics at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics, a Senior Research Fellow at Exeter College, and Head of Oxford Universitys Clinical BioManufacturing Facility. As a specialist in manufacturing vaccines for clinical trials, she is an integral part of the Oxford Vaccine project.

This is one of the most epic and pioneering moments in human history, comparable to the race to put a man on the moon, the discovery of DNA, or the first ascent of Everest. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is a triumph and its creators are life savers. Science is the exit strategy, as long as we make that science equitably available to the world as all the incredible people behind the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine always intended. Truly the Peoples Vaccine.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust

What an enthralling tale of toil, tenacity and triumph this is. The authors intelligence, idealism and sheer, bloody-minded grit shine through. The world needs all the Sarah Gilberts and Catherine Greens it can get. Just brilliant.

Dr Rachel Clarke, author of Dear Life and Breathtaking

Written with Deborah Crewe

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Vaxxers Limited 2021

The right of Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover image: Adobestock

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN 978 1 529 36985 4

Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 529 36987 8

eBook ISBN 978 1 529 36989 2

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

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Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that other people will do it for you is a sure way to fail.

Marva Collins

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Anon

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The virus, the disease and the vaccine that are the subjects of this book all acquired and/or changed their names during the time the book covers. We have adopted the following approach.

For the virus: novel coronavirus then SARS-CoV-2. The virus was officially named in mid-February 2020.

For the disease: novel coronavirus then Covid-9 or Covid. The disease was officially named in mid-February 2020.

For the vaccine: ChAdOx nCoV-9 then AZD222. Also: Oxford vaccine, Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, AstraZeneca vaccine, Covid vaccine, Covid-9 vaccine.

The vaccine was officially renamed AZD222 after we partnered with AstraZeneca.

The UKs Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the EUs European Medicines Agency (EMA) called it ChAdOx-S [recombinant]; the Serum Institute of India who are manufacturing the same vaccine in large quantities call it Covishield; and in April 202 it acquired another official name, Vaxzevria, but we do not use any of these names in the book.

I spent the first weekend of August 2020 on a camping trip with my 9-year-old daughter Ellie and some friends. The last six months in Oxford had been crazy, but now here we were, on a remote campsite in the north-west of Wales. With our little tent pitched by a mountain stream, no phone signal and no electricity, it was a welcome chance to get away from it all and take a breath.

By the Sunday evening Ellie had had enough of my campfire cooking and wed decided to treat ourselves to dinner from the pizza van. Wandering over to the van, I saw that my friend Gabi and her Jack Russell Cookie had befriended another woman-and-dog combination. Their conversation had started like so many in the last few months: How have you been coping? Arent these times strange, and difficult? At least we can get out into the countryside. Maybe everything will be back to normal by Christmas.

I started complaining about the lack of phone signal (Id enjoyed the peace at first, but now my mind was on the Zoom meeting I had the next morning) and the conversation moved on to our new friends worries about the ongoing 5G installations across the country.

I offered that Public Health England had found the technology to be no risk to health, and I didnt see why it should be contentious to use a bit more of the radio spectrum to give us better connectivity. After all, we all used mobile phones, and we all knew 4G was better than 3G. She was unconvinced: I just worry, she said. We just dont know. But we do know, I thought.

As the dogs continued to sniff each other, Gabi said with a laugh, At least youre not saying 5G causes Covid. Or that Bill Gates is using the pandemic to fit us all with microchips.

There was a pause. Gabi had touched a nerve.

Im not saying there is definitely a conspiracy, the woman put forward, carefully. But I do worry that we dont know what they put in these vaccines: mercury and other toxic chemicals. I dont trust them. They dont tell us the truth.

At this moment, our pizza tomato and salami, no cheese, at my daughters insistence was ready. But it would have to wait. Of course I wasnt away from it all. Why had I imagined I would be? It was everywhere, and affecting everything.

OK, I said after taking a second to think, I have to introduce myself. My name is Cath Green and I might not look like it in my bare feet and this dress I might not sound like it either, believe me I know but I am them. You couldnt have known this, but Im the best person in the world to tell you whats in the vaccine. I work with the people who invented it. Its me and my team, in my lab, who physically made it. We ordered the ingredients, we made the first batch, we made more batches from that, like with a sourdough starter, we purified it down and we put it into the tiny little vials. And whats in those vials is whats being used now in the trials. You say you dont know whats in the vaccine, but I do. I know exactly whats in it, and you can ask me anything you want about it.