Episode 30
· 40:50
Judith: Welcome to Berry's In the
Interim podcast, where we explore the
cutting edge of innovative clinical
trial design for the pharmaceutical and
medical industries, and so much more.
Let's dive in.
Scott Berry: All right.
Welcome everybody.
Back to in the interim, uh, I'm
your host Scott Berry, and I have
a guest today who I'm guessing has
spent more time in the interim of
clinical trials maybe than anybody.
I'm not sure this is something
that's ever been tracked.
Uh, my guest today is Dr.
Janet Wittis, and she has spent quite
a bit of time in the interim, a little
bit different than in this interim.
So welcome Janet.
Janet Wittes: Thanks, Scott.
Looking forward.
Scott Berry: Yep.
Janet is a fellow of the A SA,
the Society of Clinical Trials,
the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
She's an elected member of the
ISI, past president of the Society
of Clinical Trials, and the EN A.
Uh, she was a recipient of the Janet
l Norwood Award from, uh, the Women
in Statistical Sciences and the
WJ Dixon Consulting Award for the
American, uh, statistical Association.
So, um, and, and she has a
very long history of clinical
trials and a very fun history.
So let's, let's maybe start,
Janet, if you will, of how
did you become a statistician?
Janet Wittes: Well, my father was a
chemist, and so I figured I would just
father follow in my father's footsteps.
Uh, but I majored in biochemistry
because I was an undergraduate at
Radcliffe, which doesn't exist anymore.
My husband keeps on teasing me.
Your your college went outta business.
Um, so for those of you who don't
know, Radcliffe was the women's part
of Harvard and in the biochemistry
department had a really good feature.
You got a tutor and the
tutors were, were, um.
Very senior faculty members.
And, and so, um, so that was a big
advantage of biochemistry over chemistry.
And my tutor was John Edsel, who
was a biochemist protein chemist.
And I would go, uh, it
was very clear to him.
I would go every, every week and.
He'd give me something to read.
And it was very clear to him two things.
One that I didn't really
understand what I was reading.
I always got things right on an exam
because that was just figuring out what
the teacher, the professor would ask.
But when he asked me deep
questions, I couldn't answer.
And he also realized I just
wasn't good in the lab.
And so he was trying to figure out, you
know, which was really decent of him.
Um, what.
I'd be interested in and in, in the
beginning he gave me books and, uh,
things to read in biochemistry and
chemistry and I didn't like them.
Then he gave me, Jay Willard
gives as the phase rule.
And that's a fabulous, really
interesting, um, description of matter.
And what was, what's
fascinating is there's a point.
Temperature and pressure where the, where
molecules are in three phases, they're
at the same time, solid, liquid and gas.
And I thought that was really fascinating.
Interestingly enough, later
on, and I didn't know this
at the time, later on he one.
The Willard Gibbs award in 1972
afterwards, so, so he must have
really liked that book a lot.
Anyhow, so he, he was intrigued by
that, that I suddenly was interested
in something and then he gave me
the Fitness of the Environment by
Henderson and that talked about.
Things that were really,
again, really interesting.
Why is it that we have life be part of The
reason is that water, that H2O when it's
solid, is lighter than when it's liquid.
Whereas most solids are heavier.
Most molecules are heavier when they're,
so, I found that really fascinating.
And then he, he, he, you
could see when I went there.
That he just trying to figure out what
it was that got me excited and he said,
I, I have a book you might like, and
it was Facts from Figures by Mar Owning
and I read about a half a chapter
and I said, this is what I wanna do.
And I came back and I said, I'm so
excited and thank you very much.
And I switched into math and
that's why I got into statistics.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
So you did, uh, you did an interview
with Scott Evans several years ago
in chance, uh, and it was wonderful.
And I think in there you described it that
you were more interested in how they made
the inferences than what the inference was
itself self.
Janet Wittes: Yeah, I couldn't
care what an experiment showed.
It just didn't interest me, but
how they made the conclusion.
I found really fascinating and I
remember in Fitness of the Environment
there were these little footnotes
with peas at the bottom and I asked
him, what are these little P things?
And he explained to me what they were,
and I thought that was really interesting.
So, so this was a lesson for me in a
really good professor, being able to
figure out what interested somebody
and then match her up with a field.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
That's fantastic.
That's fantastic.
Uh, so from there, so,
so Radcliffe University,
you get your
Janet Wittes: Graduate of college.
Scott Berry: sorry, Radcliffe College,
uh, you get your degree at that point.
And then, and you described that it
was, it probably very strange for
the time that you were expected to go
to graduate school from your family.
It was just being a woman being at
that time, probably very unusual.
Janet Wittes: Yes, it was unusual
because my, my father didn't understand
how intelligent women didn't get PhD.
So he insisted that my mother
get a PhD in psychology.
His, um, grandparents, his grandmother was
a, had gone to medical school in Poland.
Um, she wasn't allowed to practice,
so she became a licensed midwife.
But she was basically the, the
physician, her two daughters who,
who came here when they were one
was about 15 and one was about 18.
They became dentists.
And so there was a, an expectation that
everybody would go to graduate school.
And so it was not it, it was no,
um, nothing unexpected in my family.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah, that's a, that's amazing.
So you go to Harvard at that point
for, for your graduate program.
Um, and, um, you are the
only female in your class.
Janet Wittes: Yes, there were 10 of us.
I was the only, I was the only woman.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah.
Janet Wittes: Um, there were other, there
were some other women that were a couple
years older than than I was, and there
were later on, there were many women.
But, but actually, I
will tell you this story.
This is not in the, in
the interview, but, but I.
It was very clear to me that people
spent their two first two years in
classes and then their third year
everybody was looking for thesis.
It it in the Harvard department.
Then you didn't get assigned a
thesis topic, you've found one.
And I thought, well, this doesn't
make sense to spend a year doing
nothing except looking for a thesis.
I'll go work.
And I went to the chair and I
said, I wanna take a year off.
And he opened his drawer.
He had the bottom drawer of his desk
and he took his finger and he, there
were a bunch of files and he said, these
are the women that I have accepted.
And then he pulled one file folder
up and he said, and this is the woman
who has finished that was Janet Dixon.
Um, and he said.
I don't want you to take a year off.
You will never come back.
And I was furious.
I said, I, I, you basically, I said,
I, you can't not let me take a year
off and I hope you'll let me back in.
So I did take a year off.
I found a thesis when I was
away, which is what I expected.
I worked at the, at the, uh, mass
General and for, for Victor Del.
On safety.
Um, so that was how do you deal with
safety issues in clinical studies?
And I found a thesis this
was capture recapture.
Scott Berry: Wow.
Wow.
uh.
uh.
And afterwards, you then went
to work for Jerry Kornfield.
Do I have the sequence
correct here?
Janet Wittes: Yes.
Yes.
When I graduated, so this
was in, during Vietnam.
So Bob had to Bob who had gone to medical
school, he had to serve something in
Vietnam for Vietnam in those days.
And his service was to go to the NIH.
Um, so, and there was a whole bunch of
people, they were yellow, they were called
the yellow beres, and they went to the
Indian Health Service and to NIH and he,
he went to the National Cancer Institute.
So I went, was looking for a position.
I had two babies at the time, um, that
was halftime, but in statistics and
somebody know Jerry Kornfield
wrote to somebody, I'm looking
for a halftime assistant.
And so it was, we connected
and that was wonderful.
He was, I learned so much from
him and had such a good time.
Um, he was, you know.
He's very, very inventive
and very smart and very nice.
And so it was two years of bays.
Scott Berry: Yeah, I was gonna say
he's also, uh, a long history of Bayes.
Um, in that, interestingly, it's not
an uncommon question I ask of whether
people are Bayesian or not, but was
that sort of your first experience?
Did you have anything at Harvard?
Uh, in, in Bayesian.
And, and was this ever a decision
to be Bayesian, non Bayesian at that
time?
Janet Wittes: No, it
wasn't his decision at all.
It was, um, at Harvard, there
were two sides of the river.
There was the Cambridge side, which
was, which was mostly frequentist.
There was the Boston side, the
business school, which was Bayesian,
and on our Tuesday seminars, the,
the Bayesian crowd would come over
and there would be all kinds of
arguments.
So, so that was, but I
never took a class in Bayes.
And, and when I went to Jerry, I
said, I wrote him a letter that said
some, something about, you know, I.
I've grown up frequentist, but if you can
convert me, I'm willing to be converted.
So I was open to it,
but not, um, not wedded.
I mean, if it had been, if I was, I
wanted to work with Cherry, um, and
whatever he happened to
be doing would be fine.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, and, and you did
this, you did the work.
Interesting.
I, I, I think an important part
of it was, uh, and then maybe, uh,
leading into what your, your, your
first job after that, um, as well.
The importance of being able to spend
time with your children, which is sort
of interesting now in nowadays where
this has become such an important thing.
In some ways, this even back
then, it's such a, a interesting
era of women working and all of
that, but that was an incredibly
important part of, of this for you.
Janet Wittes: Absolutely.
And it, it was a juggle.
It was always a juggle.
How do you bring up kids and work?
Um, and so when my job in New York, I, I
first spent a couple of years at Columbia
at the Department of Epidemiology, was
halftime, and then I got a position
at Hunter, um, the math department.
And that was really wonderful for me
because I got to teach, but because there
were classes at night, I could teach at
night and be with the kids during the day
and people, and then when I got tenure.
People, my people that I, the women
that I was with at the, at the, uh,
playground, 'cause I was always at
the playground, said, how do you get
tenure when you're only part-time?
And I said, no, no, I'm full-time,
but you only you see me in the day.
But I work at night.
Um, and it was, it was
a great place to be.
The students were from the city from
all five boroughs and very dedicated.
Um.
I used to bring the kids to
school with me when I had to,
and they'd play in the halls.
And then when I had a third baby,
I would bring the baby in and the
students would come and babysit
because that was, that was very
interesting to them, that you could,
hey, you could bring your kids,
and then later on the guys in the
department would bring their kids.
So, so it was, it was really
friendly and nice and, and.
I was still in touch with some
of the students from those days.
Scott Berry: Wow.
Now, uh, interestingly, so you
were there eight years, I think,
were you, were you starting your
work in clinical trials and was the
Woman's Health Initiative something
you were doing there or did that come
after?
Janet Wittes: That came after the
clinical trials.
I, I had some relation to clinical
trials when I was at Hunter.
I, I.
Worked a little bit with my husband,
who was at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
And so, so I did a little, but
mostly, mostly I was teaching.
Um, and so the Women's Health Initiative
actually came quite a bit later.
So, so I was the, the, um, I got
a call from N-H-L-B-I, asking me
to apply to be the branch chief of
the biostatistics research branch.
And I thought it was a joke.
I figured.
They must want some women to apply
and, and I wasn't even gonna respond.
And I was in dead that night and I said to
Bob, ah, I got a call from N-H-L-B-I and,
and they asked me to apply to this job.
And he said, what did you say?
I said, no.
He said, you did what?
I said, it was just a joke.
They're not gonna
fire me.
He said, just.
Say you're interested in applying.
And he was very interested
in a specific job at NCI.
So
he, if, if I had gotten this,
he would've followed me.
Um, and tu I got the position.
So I was absolutely
overwhelmed and thrilled.
Um, the first day, I
remember it as the first day.
It may not be the first day, but
you know, memory has a way of
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Janet Wittes: Um, I, I come in and Gordon
Lan and, and Kent Bailey come up to me
and they say, you are the branch chief.
You can go to any DSMB that you
want to, you should go to everyone.
So for seven years I went to
every DSMB that was held for.
Most of these were contracts, but
there was some grants by N-H-L-B-I.
So that was, that's where I
learned about, um, clinical trials.
The WHI happened later because after
I left, I got a call asking me to be
on the, on the DSMB, and I, I just
started a company and I was tired and
I said, I, I just don't have the time.
And I said no.
So the next day, or a little later
on that day, bill Harlan, who had
been the person to whom I'd reported
before I left, he said, Janet, why
did you say no, I want you to do it.
I said, okay, bill.
If you want me to do it, I'll do it.
And then the next day he called me.
He said, as long as you're gonna
do it, why don't you chair it?
I said, okay.
So that's how I got involved.
Scott Berry: Interesting.
So from I, from Hunter College, you're
starting to do some stuff and then you
get, uh, you get asked to be the branch
chief at, of biostatistics at N-H-L-B-I.
At what point in this do you
consider yourself a biostatistician?
It may not have been title, but at what
point do you decide that's that's what
I love doing and I'm a biostatistician.
The day, The day, you went to
DC you became a biostatistician.
Janet Wittes: No, no, it
back to my first fellowship.
So I, I didn't, I had real
troubles in my department.
They were not, my department chair was not
good to me, and so I didn't get any money
from the department, everybody else did.
So I went to the, there was an office
of, uh, the public health service.
And I went to that office and I said, I,
I got into graduate school and I want to
go and do you have any, any scholarships?
And he gave me this great big, you
know, it seemed like a hundred page
application for, for a fellowship.
And I said, don't you
have anything shorter?
So he pulls out a one
page thing, a traineeship.
He said, well, this is another.
So I said.
Oh, okay, I'll, I'll apply for that.
But the deal was you had to agree to
go into public health, so I said, okay,
I'll check the, go into public health.
And then I ended up taking a lot of
courses at the biostat department
at, at the School of Public Health.
And that's, that's why,
and I got interested,
I mean, it wasn't as.
So it, it was a really good fit.
Uh, but if that piece of paper
had been bigger, I probably
would've been in a different
view.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
So I guess, uh, tying
a few things together.
Interesting.
So your, your, your family and you
referred to your father and, and,
and really your family that expected
graduate school and, and chemistry.
What about your own children?
So you three, three kids, did any of
them go into statistics?
Janet Wittes: Uh, no.
Nobody went into statistics.
Nobody went into medicine.
Nobody went into science.
All right, so, so.
My daughter majored in basically
comp lit, um, French and English.
Um, my son Ben, whom a lot of you
may know, he he's, he, he does
national national security law and he
runs, he's very active politically.
Um, he majored in English
and Japanese history.
Japanese history and my son
Jeremy majored in Spanish, so
Scott Berry: Wow.
Yeah.
Very liberal arts from
uh, uh, coming from that.
That's fantastic.
Janet Wittes: Yeah.
Scott Berry: Okay, so
you're at the N-H-L-B-I.
Uh, within that.
And, um, I, I think you spend a year
in New Haven and all of that, and
then you decide to start a business.
Uh, and I don't know so much
if it was a decision to start a
business so much as I'm consulting,
I, I, I love what I'm doing.
I'm designing clinical trials.
I need a business to
do this kind of thing.
So how does that
happen?
What's that?
What's that process?
Janet Wittes: Okay, so I come back
from our disastrous year in New Haven.
My job at N eight, it was one
year, August 15th to August 15th.
Um, Bob goes back to the NCI.
My job is gone, and he says to me.
And I, I get a lot of offers
from, from different people.
They call me up, you're coming back.
Why don't you do this?
But nothing was as attractive.
I, I left a tenure position at Hunter.
This is now eight years later and
I'm getting these offers to work
for free for all sorts of stuff.
And I'm saying, this doesn't,
something here isn't computing.
Um, so Bob says, look,
just spend your time.
You've got all these half written papers,
you've, we've moved twice in a year.
Just write your papers
and something will happen.
So I say, okay.
So not very long after that.
I mean, again, my sense of time is
not accurate, but certainly
I hadn't finished a paper
Scott Berry: Okay.
Janet Wittes: So
So I get a call from Jerry Soff, who's
the head of immunology at Walter Reed.
And I had known him from my N-H-L-B-I
days because I had sat on a, um,
meningococcemia, a sepsis study
that he was one of the PIs of, and
he calls me up and he says, Janet,
you're unemployed, which was true.
He said, how would you like
to learn about malaria?
And I said, oh, that sounds interesting.
So he, he then says he, he
describes the study that he has.
He needs some analysis, and he
says, um, how much would you charge?
I said, $3,000 long pause.
And he says, would 25,000 be enough?
I said, yeah, sure.
Late.
Then it turned out he had to,
nobody knew who I was at the Army.
It was like, you know, Jerry's,
Jerry's friend wants to do this, so
they had to do a competitive bid.
The next higher bid was 80.
Um, so I got it at 28
was much more
Scott Berry: but, but you were,
you were an order of magnitude
different on your initial
bid.
Yes.
Yeah.
Of three th Yeah.
Janet Wittes: I had, I had no idea.
I had,
that was how the business worked, in fact.
And then I got, you know,
people, you know, why malaria?
Nobody was interested in malaria.
It only killed a million
people a year, right?
Um, nobody cared.
And by nobody, I mean,
drug companies didn't care.
Researchers didn't care.
Um.
So there was malaria, and then with,
with, with the army that was dengue.
Um, there was leash mania.
I mean, all these tropical diseases
that are really devastating that
where there's very little interest,
but at least there was very little
interest by the, um, drug companies.
So, and I said to Jerry at one point,
why do you study these diseases?
And he said.
We study diseases everywhere
our boys might go.
Scott Berry: Uh.
Janet Wittes: So, so they were basically
scientists who were in the army and
when they found a disease they were
interested in, our boys might go there.
Um, so, so that was fascinating.
And, and so we worked in trials,
developing vaccine trials that
was developing vaccine trials
for all those three diseases.
Um.
And then the other thing that happened,
there were other diseases nobody
cared about or they didn't study.
One was a LS because nothing worked.
So, and there was no, at that
point, there wasn't a group of
statisticians that that worked in a LS.
So there were a bunch of these
diseases that were orphan diseases
that people didn't care about.
And by care about, I mean from a.
There.
There was no formal structure to study
these diseases in the way there was
for cancer and heart and so forth.
And so I kept on getting
these orphan diseases, and malaria
is an orphan disease, even though it
kills a million people, not anymore.
It kills like 600,000 a year, but it's
an orphan disease because orphan disease
status is defined by the cases in the us.
Um, so I, I began getting these, oh,
and nobody in heart came to me and
that's the only thing I knew about.
Nobody came because they had a whole,
there was a whole structure in cardiology.
in cancer came, or I wouldn't
take anything in cancer 'cause
Bob was so high up at the NCI that
it would be unseemly for me to.
And also I didn't know
anything about cancer.
Um, so I built this business
and I kept, and I hi.
And my two older kids were just
graduating from college, so I hired
one of them and I hired their friends.
We called it the Kid Connection.
And that was how the business started.
It was no, if anybody had told me 10
years ago that 10 years before that,
that I would start a business, I
would've just laughed because I loved
teaching and I loved working in the
garden.
Scott Berry: Uh, that's fantastic.
So you spent time a, a significant time,
eight years, academia, uh, eight years,
eight, nine years in government, and
then early 1990s you start Statistics
Collaborative, and that
goes for, uh, 30 years
Janet Wittes: Yeah.
32 years.
Scott Berry: Yeah, but doing this
consulting, building the business, uh,
in that, and hence, I, I stick with the
comment as you described, N-H-L-B-I,
that you have probably spent more time
in the interim than anybody in the world.
Uh, it's fantastic.
How, how do you think of.
The sort of current world of
clinical trials, statistical
science, adaptive designs, and I
know you've been on DSMB for trials.
We've designed and you've
seen kind of a lot of things.
The, the, let's ignore the, the,
the recent, uh, political aspects
of this, but just the science of it.
We'll get to the political, but the
science of this and where we are.
Janet Wittes: Well, I think we're in
exciting times and, and if you had
asked me this five years ago, I would've
said, I think we're in exciting times.
Right.
But, and actually I read my interview
just this morning and I realized that
one of the things I said, and that was
11 years ago, is that we're gonna have
to think about cell therapy, we're
gonna have to, about gene therapy.
And I realized that
was actually prescient.
Um, I think there are, you know,
big data and AI and, and all the
things that are making studies
different from what they used to be.
Um.
Pretty exciting, and I think
people should realize that.
You know, you hear things about,
oh, there's no more clinical trials.
That's not true.
There's going to be
plenty of clinical trials.
The shape is gonna change.
And, and how you think about,
you know, there's a lot of
trials in super orphan diseases.
How do you deal with those?
Those are really different.
I mean, I'm, I was used to vaccine
trials where there are thousands of
people, um, and you count the number
of events or cardiology trials where
there are used to be hundreds and
thousands and tens of thousands.
You're now dealing with
really tiny sample sizes.
How do you deal with that?
How do you deal with,
with genetic variants?
So.
I think there's a wealth of
interesting, exciting, difficult
issues that we're facing.
Scott Berry: Uh, that's, that's fantastic.
So, so
part of this picture a
little bit is sort of when,
when we were setting up.
Uh, the timing of this, you referred
to how busy you are, so you're still
doing tons of statistics for sure.
Uh, you're also quite a,
uh, um, uh, an advocate.
Um, you're, you're, you're
getting involved in in social
things and interesting.
While we're taping this.
RFK Junior is in front of Congress.
Um, we've got things you're
passionate about this
now.
Janet Wittes: Yeah, so
I'm, I'm, I'm silent because
I feel so strongly that,
that RFK Jr is doing serious harm to
the country as a whole, to the world
as a whole by his anti-vaccine stance.
And it's really scary.
Florida just yesterday or two days
ago, removed the, the mandate for
school kids to take vaccines, you
know, and what does that mean?
Suddenly we're gonna have polio again.
Suddenly we already have measles again.
Um, we're gonna have diphtheria again.
Um, so
suddenly, and I feel very, because
I've worked in vaccines so much.
It, it hits me.
It hits all of us very strongly.
It hits us as, as parents.
It hits us as as, as residents.
If you think about people who
are immunocompromised, kids who
are immunocompromised going to
school, why did they get protected?
They got protected, not because
they got vaccines, they couldn't,
but because of their herd immunity,
because everybody else had.
Was, was vaccinated against
these, these diseases.
So yeah, I, I think we as a community
of, of citizens have to
fight this in whatever way we
can.
Scott Berry: Yeah, I, I mean your
view of, of working with people like
Jerry Kornfield.
Uh, and the work he did and the, the
N-H-L-B-I and the, the amazing strides
we've made in health, uh, since, since,
uh, you started there and all that.
And now it just seems incredible.
And, and interestingly you said
that you're preparing to, uh,
uh, go on in March and protest
this weekend, so you're very, very active.
Janet Wittes: I'm not as
active as I would like to be, but I, I am.
So my brother is coming in from
Connecticut for this march.
So the issue here in DC is that
the National Guard has come to
protect us from a rotting bank.
Advance.
So I've actually spoken to
three groups of, of, of, um,
national guards, one at the Union
Station, one in DuPont Circle, and one
when I was on my way to the gym and
I've said to them, basically, go home.
We don't need you.
We don't want you go.
We, so we support our police.
They are protecting us.
So it's very scary
living in a police state.
Because you just go for a walk and you
see the National Guard all over it.
So my brother's coming in from Connecticut
and he's made me a, um, a poster.
He painted it, it's Humpty dump,
it's Trump as Humpty Dumpty
sitting on a wall, and he has a hat
with the quote from Rah Emanuel.
Cruel, chaotic, corrupt.
And so that's gonna be my
t-shirt.
Um.
What does this do?
No, but I, I do think we
individually have to do
lots and lots of little things to make
the politicians realize that we care and
that they're, they are not protecting us
by roll, rolling over and doing
everything that Trump says.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah, and, and it's
interesting
if you go back
to.
Uh, the, the huge part about RFK,
about the health and your original
interest in statistics was the process
of learning inferences and, and a
little bit less about the chemical
interpretation of that, but the process
of that, and that sort of at assault
right now is this process of understanding
is gone and it's just what somebody wants.
Uh, it it as the decision and this
whole process of science is leaving
this, interestingly, what else is a
bit of a, an assault is diversity.
And you recently wrote a short, little
interesting article on diversity.
Be interesting to tell
our audience about that.
Janet Wittes: Okay, so this was
written in Lilith Magazine, which
was founded and by my friend Susan.
Schneider, she's just
retiring after 50 years.
It's a, it's a feminist Jewish magazine
and she had me write a little piece.
So I was working, this was my, when I
was 19, um, so it was after my sophomore
or junior year of college, and I was
working at General Foods, a summer job.
And I was working in the market research
department and which was, you know,
very statistical and they were really
interested in the following problem.
They were interested in why they can't
sell SOS in Jewish neighborhoods.
They had done all kinds of market
research that showed that the more,
the higher the percentage of Jews.
Less, the less, um, SOS was sold.
And they invited me to here, to
a meeting with, um, some very
senior people at the company.
This is General Foods and these are
they, I I view them as
all six feet tall, very
handsome with
suits.
Scott Berry: were you invited
in your role or were you invited
because you were
Jewish?
Janet Wittes: Oh no, I don't
think they knew I was Jewish.
Scott Berry: Ah, okay.
Janet Wittes: If they'd known I was
Jewish, they probably wouldn't have
hired me.
That's,
no, they invited me because my
boss thought it would be good for
me to see how decisions were made.
And so I was sitting around the table and
they're all talking about how they're,
all the different things they did, they
said they advertised in Jewish newspapers.
They had Molly Goldberg, um, from
the television program advertise,
SOS, and and I finally said, but.
You're never gonna sell it
in Jewish neighborhoods.
And they looked at me and they
said, I don't know if they said it.
I said, the soap isn't kosher.
There's a dead silence.
And one of them says, there's
such a thing as kosher soap.
I said, yes.
So it was, it was a dual lesson.
It was a lesson in diversity, um, that.
If you, if you, it was a lesson that you
have to have representation of people
that are the things that are relevant.
And it was also a lesson for me
in that models aren't enough.
You have to understand the context.
There's a little piece left of the
story that I, I wrote in my piece.
I was invited the next year
to lunch at Oscar Lin's.
Um.
House and I was very
nervous about being there.
He's a very, very, very pre, um, prominent
sociologist in immigration, and I was
really timid and I'm there, and the person
who had, who, who had invited me said,
tell your your story about general foods.
So I told my story
and Oscar Hamlin said, serves
them right for not hiring Jews.
Scott Berry: Hmm.
Janet Wittes: But it, it really is
as we're, as we're becoming less
and less open to hearing from people
from all different stripes, we're
gonna, not only are individual
people gonna be hurt, but, but
information isn't going to be parlayed.
Scott Berry: Hmm.
Yeah, it's, it's an
incredible
story from the perspective of
they had gotten to
this point, they're trying to increase
sales in Jewish neighborhoods.
They're running marketing studies,
marketing campaigns, and they haven't
talked to a Jew at that point, I imagine,
uh, which is sort of stunning on that.
I, I love how you tied that to
the role of you as a scientist.
Where you might be now working on a trial
in a LS in malaria cardiovascular, and
your role is not just as a modeler, but
understanding the science, understanding
the context and your, your better
scientist under that perspective.
I, I imagine
that has to be part of your story.
Janet Wittes: Oh yes.
I mean, so I've done
a lot of work as this.
Diseases in Africa, right?
These diseases that I'm, and one
of the things I felt was really
important was to go go to the clinics
and you go to a clinic and in, let's
say Kenya, and you go to a hospital
and you realize, oh my goodness.
It's very different from hospitals here.
People are coming from.
Far away walking with their babies
and their food and sitting in,
in, um, sitting in the halls.
And then you look at the, at
the hospital beds, there are,
you know, 20 people in a room.
And so if you don't have a sense
of, oh my goodness, what is it like
to have a hospital, to how can you
design a study without knowing?
The physical context of what you're doing.
So, yeah, so it, it's not only the
science of it, you know, how does the,
how does the protozoa work in malaria,
but it is, how can you actually a
study in a situ, in a place that is so
different from what we're used to.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Uh, fantastic.
Alright, well Janet, um, uh, thank
you for joining us in the interim,
uh, a place you're comfortable with.
Um, uh, uh, and, uh, good
luck this weekend.
Janet Wittes: Oh, I'm really
looking forward to it.
I hope we can do something.
Thanks so much, Scott, for inviting
me and, and I do have to say I
do enjoy sitting on your DSMs.
I, I.
You know, they're, they're
always interesting and very different from
other ones.
Scott Berry: Yeah.
Yeah.
Fabulous.
Fabulous.
Uh, I hope you'll come back, uh, and
tell us about all the other stuff
you're doing because we love to do
multiple interims here.
Janet Wittes: Okay,
Scott Berry: It's wonderful.
Thank you,
Janet.
Yep.
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