Dr. David B. Agus, Chief Executive Officer, Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine; 
Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Health
Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Health
Siobhan O’Connor, Media Executive and Journalist; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Health


Brainstorm Health 2022 - Setting The Stage: Connecting The World 

Conferences

Dr. David B. Agus, Arianna Huffington, Siobhan O’Connor: Co-chairs, Fortune Brainstorm Health


Brainstorm Health 2022 - Setting The Stage

Dr. David B. Agus, Chief Executive Officer, Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine
Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive
Siobhan O’Connor, Media Executive and Journalist

Brainstorm Health 2022 - Setting The Stage: Connecting The World 


it was very exciting coming out because they said wherever you go, Ariana will follow you. And so it was kind of an exciting moment. Well, first of all, let me just say how exciting it is to be here with all of your life and to be here with a number of amazing leaders in healthcare and business, frankly anyone of you could be on stage and that's for me, the best kind of conference where what's happening beyond the panels in conversations is going to be as important as what's happening here on stage. So as we've been discussing the program during these months, we've all been very focused on what are the new transformations and innovations that we need in health care. And my personal passion is going upstream addressing the behavioral changes that can actually transform healthcare as we know it right now because the skyrocketing rates of increases in chronic diseases that are lifestyle and stress related like diabetes, like heart disease, not to mention the mental health crisis. These are going to be impossible to solve without helping people change behaviors. And as we know, changing behaviors is incredibly hard and it requires leadership and it requires storytelling and of course it also requires science and David and I Over lunch, we're talking about some examples throughout history about how you can change behavior. Especially let's start with vaccinations and David. I would love for you to tell one of my favorite David stories about that. I love it. We were talking over lunch of the history of changing behaviors. That's an amazing lunch topic if you think about it, Not in my shoes. Yes, rockstar shoes by the way. So I mean, this story means a lot to me and you know, because it really came from something that I think changed the world 200 years ago. It's hard to even say that 200 years ago, a good fraction of the world have been dying from smallpox 11 or 12%. And what they noticed was that anybody who took care of somebody with smallpox themselves would die. And this one clever man and he was a kind of a doctor's apprentice, noticed that when people milk cows, they would get pockets on their arms and they wouldn't die and they could take care of people with smallpox. So all of a sudden he had this, you know, epiphany and he went to the time the king and he goes, you know, I want to stick a needle in and draw pus out of these people's arms and inject other people to try to transfer the ability to be protected from smallpox. And the king said, you're crazy, get the hell out of here. Well, that night, the king had a dream of King Solomon where King Solomon had two mothers who came to him and said, you know, this is my child. They were both arguing over a baby and King Solomon had the wisdom to say, I'm gonna rip the baby in half and give half to each of you and the real mother said no, you take the baby. And that's how King Solomon knew the king goes, I'm gonna do my King Solomon moments. And he called this guy Edward Jenner back and he said, you have a five year old son. If you inject your five year old son, I know you believe and there's a remarkable sculpture of him doing that, which we're actually going to have at our institute next month. But the power and why this story is important to me is that the second person to get what became the first vaccine was the king Number two through 11 were the royal family. So the notion of science without leadership, it is somewhat meaningless that science would have died had not the king stepped up and said, I will take that shot. And so in today's world where we look at what's happened during these two years of the pandemic. What we've seen is we've lacked leadership, especially on the healthcare side. And to get normative behavior change. You need that leadership. And so one of the themes I think you'll see going through years, we've chosen handpicked some of the people we think are the greatest leaders and we want to talk about what led them to do what they did and we need more of Yeah, I mean when I think about um what has motivated me as a journalist for instance, it has been this the amazing thing that happens when you have access to information about science and you have access to information about behavior change and wellness and health and whatnot and then how to communicate that to appeal to other people in a way that actually sticks with them and gives them the tools that they need to make those changes. It's very hard to stick with them though, as you said. Um and so I think what whether you're talking about mental health or you're talking about vaccines, you need leadership. You absolutely need leadership and we need to close the gap of access for people to make these things part of their lives and and incorporated so that they get why it's important. So they have that information and they're comfortable acting on it. And one of the dramatic changes we've seen during the pandemic is that business leaders have stepped in and fill this gap in healthcare leadership. And now really um every business is also a healthcare business because all the business leaders in this room are caring for them, physical health, the well being, the mental health of your employees and what is amazing. David and Stephen is the way that finally we are making the connection between the well being and mental resilience of employees and business metrics that these are not just like warm and fuzzy HR benefits. These are essential for a successful thriving business and for attrition retention productivity not to mention healthcare costs, direct and indirect. No question about it. I mean, certainly business leaders stepped up whether they help their employees, whether they develop policies, but you know, the theme of the meeting this year is global and you know, it's the notion that the world right now, it matters to us what happens elsewhere and for the first time ever really in my lifetime with health, you know, there's an awareness, what happens in South Africa matters in the United States. What happens in chile? What happens in France matters here? We are connected. We are one community. It's true if you're a business, your employees all over and you've known you had to care for him or her all over the world. But now we know we're all connected and the notion that somebody can get on an airplane, obviously it would be a delta plane from this meeting here and you know, end up here and bring us a new variant, even though they tested negative when they took off Is a reality. You know, be a.5. That new variant is now 20% of cases here in the United States and it just showed up in South Africa, you know, two months ago. So we're seeing this new motion didn't happen in the era of smallpox really hard to get continent to continent. But now it's all changed. And so when we talk about our policy in the United States to distribute vaccines, it's for our economy, it's for our health. It's not just for us trying to help others. And so to me that's one of the other new awareness is we felt Viruses don't respect borders. I looked up a number the other day of how many flights were taking global flights were taken in pre pandemic days and the answer is four billion a year. That's four billion opportunities for the virus to hop from a small town in Nebraska to shanghai. And yeah, they don't know borders. So, you know, there's a lot that's happening and that can make us pessimistic and worried. You know, new variants, um people getting infected at alarming rates. But I think despite all the losses and all the grief, this is an amazing time of possibility. And and that's really what's most exciting to me. First of all, we have a once in a generation opportunity to redefine how we work and live to really be able to be productive and be creative without burning out. I mean, we finally acknowledged burnout as a global epidemic. We finally acknowledged the mental health crisis that was not created by the pandemic but merely exacerbated by the pandemic. So all these new awareness on which we are basing what we're doing is an incredible source of optimism for me. I know you are naturally optimistic but I'm naturally optimistic on Tuesdays. You're right. So yeah, I mean to me like overnight we changed how we work, right? It's accepted now to work from home in certain situations. It's accepted now to zoom with people. My interactions are global when they used to be local. I mean, I'm on zoom with people over the world and that was remarkably rare before and at the same time, there's also an awareness that science matters Science got political, which is the bad side of the story. The good side of the story is that science matters and health matters. People realized that if you were in bad health, you are much more likely to have serious complications from this freaking virus than if you were in good health and science is what got us out of it, is what is keeping us out of it and we're gonna talk to some of the amazing people behind that science over the next two days. But I think it's also hopefully to me that next generation has a spark under them to go into science because we sorely needed over the last decade or too many young people who had the greatest brains went into the tech world, they went to Silicon Valley, they went to write for fortune. They didn't necessarily go into the health care domain and healthcare research and I hope that's one of the things that come out of it because we need those best and the brightest because the three of us, unfortunately we're getting older, but that's also what's been so great how the pandemic, partly because of this hybrid world has brought together so many different generations kind of working together some remotes, some in the office. And we're going to see that unfolding over the next few months and here. And just before we move on to David and interviewing Albert bourla, I just want to say what an amazing story that has been. But it's important first of all that every session here has one greek person in it. So we're doing you in this one then Albert the next one and not just a greek person guys. A greek person who has kept their accent. Although I think Albert's accent is even stronger than mine, which is amazing because I think I'm the last person to keep my accent. But one of those I'm so excited to um listen to your conversation with Albert and is because everything we said at the beginning, the need for leadership is really paramount when it comes to the story of the vaccine. And if you haven't read his book, The Moonshot, it's really worth reading because it shows something that was expected to take eight or 10 years, took eight months and how different the world would have been. So any final words of wisdom strap up for a really exciting two days. Um, this is one of the best health conferences I've ever attended and I'm honored to be here with you all. And like you said at the beginning, everyone out there could be up here and that's what makes really, really unique. So thank you so much for being here, David over to you. Yeah. My only thing I would push each of you is get out of your comfort zone, right? You're going to see, you know, speeches and talks and conversations from all different domains. Don't just focus on your area, get out of it and we purposely mixed it up. So you have a new technology coupled with the delivery of health care coupled with the behavior company. All of them and all of them are critically important because health care is an enterprise. And I think that's one of the messages that come through. You cannot get stuck in your vertical. You have to look at that big picture and I want to give a shout out to one person here also who's when Ariana and I started this, we had another person with us Cliff Leaf who unfortunately or fortunately it's still here. And so Cliff is going to be a part of this conference later on and it's fantastic to see you back even though you've left Fortune, you've come back for this as a pinch hitter and we love that and thank you. Thank you Claire