Cambodia recently announced that it plans to nominate President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. In response, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, naming other conflicts that Trump has “ended,” said that, “It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
I agree that it’s “well past time.” To be specific: Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for Operation Warp Speed (OWS), which through a classic public/private partnership during the final year of his first term helped bring the world back from one of the worst pandemics in history. This effort produced novel vaccines, therapeutics, and rapid tests, and has already saved millions of lives around the world, with more to come with other diseases thanks to the underlying mRNA technology.
To be sure, mRNA vaccines got caught in a web of political warfare both during and following the Covid pandemic. Just this week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that HHS plans to cancel contracts and pull funding for more than 20 mRNA vaccine development investments he said pose “more risk than benefits.”
This is coming at a time when mRNA vaccines are showing great new promise in that fight against cancer. It would appear that politics is once again triumphing over science. That’s not to say that this technology carries no risks — only that there is a huge scientific upside.
The political rancor does not ultimately detract from Operation Warp Speed’s historical importance. In fact, the award might help diminish some of that rancor.
Even those who are skeptical of mRNA-based Covid vaccines should admit that they represent an important technological advance that has impacted not just the fight against infectious diseases but cancer, too. A universal mRNA vaccine currently in the works has shown great promise in mice as a useful tool alongside other more standard therapies against all cancers.
How does this work? Cancers produce abnormal proteins. Typically, a cancer immunotherapy or a cancer vaccine will arm the immune system against those abnormal proteins. These personalized treatments may take a long time to develop and work especially well against certain types of tumors that are mutating a lot, such as melanoma.
But University of Florida Health researchers have developed an mRNA vaccine that is more generalizable, that revs up the immune system to fight all cancer by activating a powerful immune chemical known as interferon. Studied in mice, and about to be tried in humans, this vaccine works particularly well with tumors that also respond to so-called checkpoint inhibitors, pioneering immunotherapy that enables the cancer to be recognized by the immune system and targeted for destruction. The new vaccine is “loaded” with RNA coding for tumor unspecific antigens, in other words, it simply boosts the immune system’s fight against the cancer itself and buys time so that more tumor-specific vaccines can then be given afterward.
Medical innovation equals “peace” because the exported technology saves lives in countries beyond the country of origin. Treatments and preventatives act as global ambassadors. mRNA vaccines were developed in the U.S. and Germany, while the amazing antiviral Paxlovid and monoclonal antibodies were developed here. But the OWS engine sent these solutions everywhere, as the U.S. contributed to global efforts directly and through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization. This accomplishment fulfills the Nobel Peace Prize’s goal to honor those “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Two veterans of the first Trump administration think that the Peace Prize for OWS is a good idea.
“I think protecting health is always an absolutely fantastic form of diplomacy,” Brett Giroir — who served as assistant secretary of health, member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and U.S. representative to the executive board of the WHO during Trump’s first term — told me. “By providing the catalyst for that vaccine, it definitely saved millions around the world. I don’t think America gets enough credit for that.”
Former U.S. surgeon general, Coronavirus Task Force member, and OWS adviser Jerome Adams agreed, telling me, “Operation Warp Speed stands as one of the most remarkable scientific and humanitarian achievements of the past half-century. … This effort not only saved millions of lives worldwide — studies estimate vaccines prevented over 6 million deaths in the first year alone — but also projected U.S. innovation and resolve on the global stage.”
Adams added that OWS “set a new standard for public-private partnerships and provided a blueprint for addressing future global health crises. By sharing knowledge, resources, and vaccines with the world, OWS reinforced the United States’ commitment to global health security, proving that American ingenuity and collaboration can overcome even the most daunting challenges.”
Giroir also said that the lack of credit is possibly why America “is pulling so many plugs” on global health and scientific research, which he doesn’t think is wise. I must agree with him.
Now think about how the Nobel Peace Prize might send the opposite message — think about how the politicization of vaccines in the wake of OWS might be partly overcome or reversed if Trump were actually rewarded for mRNA vaccines’ creation and distribution. I think he might then be more vocal endorsing vaccines in the wake of the deserved award.
Adams grieved “the politicization and increasing vaccine hesitancy — which we are also exporting to the rest of the world.” As he said to me, it’s “limiting our current and future ability to translate this historic scientific achievement into even more lives saved.”
The world owes Trump a big debt of gratitude for OWS. We must not forget that it was Trump who created the public/private partnership and Trump who provided the vision to fully develop and use this pandemic-defeating technology in the first place. For this he deserves the Nobel Prize — and it could come with benefits to the U.S. and the world.
Marc Siegel is a professor of medicine and medical director of “Doctor Radio” at NYU Langone Health.
