I don't think so. My decision to move to the U.S. was part of a much larger decision-making process in my mind.
That decision reflects some of the reasons I left. One of the very important reasons I left was that I wanted to do research on human subjects, do as much as I could in clinical trials to accelerate vaccine development. We test a lot of vaccines on mice, and they all work. When you get to humans, nothing works. I thought the pilot plant was going to enable us to make small lots that were going to allow us to do small pilot clinical trials with humans.
Despite the fact that when I left.... It was long before my time that the decision was made. I think it certainly would have given Canada a very strong competitive edge in the current atmosphere of vaccine development. We realize that everything we do in species other than humans doesn't give us the right answers. Having a place where you can make those small pilot-scale vaccine lots certainly would have allowed us to contribute this kind of effort. Having this vaccine plant would have enabled not just me but many other Canadian researchers to contribute in a very significant way to the current realm of vaccine development, which is to do work on humans, and it's unfortunate that it's not going to happen.