Transcript: Full Transcript With FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn speaks with NPR's David Greene about the development of a vaccine and the use of existing drugs to treat COVID-19. Here, a transcript of their full interview.

Morning Edition host David Greene: So obviously a vaccine against this virus offers the best public health defense. What is your agency doing to speed up the process of getting a vaccine tested and deployed?

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn: So as you probably know, David, a vaccine candidate vaccine was put into a Phase One trial, and that's the earliest of phases of trials to safety trial on Monday. So really record speed there, David, in terms of getting a vaccine to a virus and as you know, it's — the safety is really critical here, which is why we have to be careful about the development. But very quick development, as I mentioned yesterday, realistically, we're looking at a year to get a vaccine up and running and available. So you may ask why is safety so important? It's always important, of course, with any therapy or prevention, such as a vaccine. But remember, the vaccines are given to people who don't have the disease, who are otherwise healthy. So the safety consideration is very significant. After the safety phase of this, then it gets moved to can the vaccine elicit an immune response? Which of course, we would consider to be protective against