Immigrants overcome uncertainty – they’re uniquely risk taking.
Joel Rose 20, correspondent on NPR's National Desk, 12-18-2020, "If COVID-19 vaccines bring an end to the pandemic, America has immigrants to thank," https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/947638959/if-covid-19-vaccines-bring-an-end-to-the-pandemic-america-has-immigrants-to-than
Immigrants are playing key roles in nearly every aspect of the vaccine effort in the United States. Even the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's vaccine distribution program, is an immigrant — Moncef Slaoui, the former head of GlaxoSmithKline's vaccines department.
President Trump often takes credit for the record-breaking speed of vaccine development — and for "unleashing America's scientific genius," as he puts it.
But people in the biotech industry say that American genius depends on a pool of global talent.
"We are an intellectual magnet for the best of the best from around the world," said Jeremy Levin, CEO of Ovid Therapeutics and chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the U.S. industry trade group.
Levin, who was born in South Africa, said high-skilled immigrants are attracted to the U.S. for its great educational institutions — and for its biotech industry that's willing to take big risks.
"We in America are willing to take a chance," Levin said. "It is the willingness to fail in the endeavor to find a medicine that could make the difference to millions of people around the world. And that characteristic is what's drawn so many from abroad ... who are just going to have a go at it."