Messenger RNA technology, better known as mRNA technology, made it possible to rapidly deploy a new vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic — much earlier than would otherwise have been possible, saving millions of lives in the process.
But next time, we might not be so lucky.
In early August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the cancellation of up to $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research and development, severely limiting the scientific capabilities of the U.S. government to respond to biological threats.
This is about more than the next naturally emerging pandemic. This research is also vital for our defense against potential biological threats — both accidents and deliberate attacks.
Imagine an attack on the U.S. using an engineered virus for which there is no available vaccine. Absent investment in mRNA platforms and other vaccine platform technologies, it could take years to develop a safe and effective vaccine, manufacture it at scale and distribute it in the U.S. and internationally. Millions of Americans could die, to say nothing of trillions in economic losses.
This isn’t science fiction. It is a very real threat for which we were actually preparing — right up until this funding cut.
We are in a time of rapid advances in the life sciences, including in synthetic biology, and their convergence with artificial intelligence. If misused, these tools and technologies could pose potentially catastrophic risks, and they are becoming increasingly accessible and powerful. We must be prepared should bad actors attempt to exploit them to attack the U.S. or our allies.
With the right kinds of investments in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, this type of biological catastrophe can be avoided. But it will require financing technologies to rapidly develop new vaccines in response to new biological threats, and mRNA vaccines are one of the leading technologies in this area.
In addition, it will be essential to support capabilities to prevent these types of events and to detect them rapidly if they occur.
These investments are crucial not just for saving lives during global public health emergencies, but also for preventing biological attacks. If successful, they could even discourage adversaries from using such weapons in the first place — “deterrence by denial.” This could also become critical for protecting U.S. troops and maintaining continuity of operations in a pandemic environment.
In 2020, a U.S. destroyer based in the Caribbean was taken offline due to SARS-CoV-2 virus infections rapidly spreading among the crew. A more robust biodefense posture can help avoid this type of lapse in readiness.
The world is likely to face another pandemic in our lifetimes, and the next one could be as severe as COVID-19 or significantly worse.
These risks are increasing due to naturally emerging infectious disease risks like H5N1 bird flu, but also as a result of the growing risks that the tools of modern bioscience and biotechnology will be exploited by bad actors.
mRNA vaccines are vital for guarding against these risks and saving lives in the U.S. and overseas, protecting U.S. national and global security and ensuring economic stability. They are also one of our most effective, flexible and scalable defenses against a wide range of potential future biological threats that we may face.
We know an enormous amount about the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines because they have been studied and used extensively in response to COVID-19, where they have proved their value in preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death. This has been thoroughly documented in the scientific literature, contrary to false assertions by HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and others that mRNA vaccines are not effective tools against respiratory viruses.
Additional research into mRNA vaccines is needed to explore how to adapt them for a broader range of potential threats — including pandemics and biological attacks — and to improve their effects on immune response.
Moreover, research into new mRNA vaccine delivery mechanisms can make it easier and cheaper to distribute it under a wide range of conditions. One example is distribution without requiring storage at ultra-low temperatures, as was the case with some mRNA COVID vaccines.
If this vital research does not move forward now to prepare for the next pandemic, the scientific community will need to figure this out on the fly during a crisis, which would cost months to years of valuable time. This is so important that, if HHS is unwilling to maintain this investment, the Department of Defense should step in and draw on existing congressionally authorized resources to do so.
If we don’t think carefully about the current and future threat landscape and invest in this crucial technology, we will find our nation at the mercy of others for our safety because we will have abandoned vital tools needed to protect ourselves.
Margaret Hamburg, MD is former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Jaime Yassif, Ph.D. is vice president of Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.