America Is Abandoning One of the Greatest Medical Breakthroughs

In early 2020, when the first genetic sequence of the new coronavirus was posted online, scientists were ready. Within hours, they began designing a vaccine. Within weeks, clinical trials were underway. That unprecedented speed, which saved millions of lives, was possible only because years earlier, the United States had invested in a vaccine technology called mRNA. Today, that work is being sidelined, and with it, our best chance to quickly respond when the next threat emerges.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced it would wind down 22 mRNA vaccine development projects under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, halting nearly $500 million in investments. This decision undercuts one of the most significant medical advances in decades, technology that could protect millions more from the threats ahead.

I know the stakes because I was BARDA’s director when the United States made the decision to invest heavily in mRNA. That investment did not begin with Covid-19. It began in 2016, when we faced the Zika virus outbreak. We needed a way to design a vaccine in days, not years, to protect pregnant women and their babies from devastating birth defects. Older vaccine approaches were too slow. The solution was mRNA: a flexible, rapid-response technology that could be reprogrammed for any pathogen once its genetic sequence was known. That early investment laid the groundwork for the lightning-fast Covid-19 response four years later.