The US Military Commitment to Vaccine Development: A Century of Successes and Challenges

Abstract

The US military has been a leading proponent of vaccine development since its founding. General George Washington ordered the entire American army to be variolated against smallpox after recognizing the serious threat that it posed to military operations. He did this on the recommendation from Dr. John Morgan, the physician-in-chief of the American army, who wrote a treatise on variolation in 1776. Although cases of smallpox still occurred, they were far fewer than expected, and it is believed that the vaccination program contributed to victory in the War of Independence. Effective military force requires personnel who are healthy and combat ready for worldwide deployment. Given the geography of US military operations, military personnel should also be protected against diseases that are endemic in potential areas of conflict. For this reason, and unknown to many, the US military has strongly supported vaccine research and development. Four categories of communicable infectious diseases threaten military personnel: (1) diseases that spread easily in densely populated areas (respiratory and dysenteric diseases); (2) vector-borne diseases (disease carried by mosquitoes and other insects); (3) sexually transmitted diseases (hepatitis, HIV, and gonorrhea); and (4) diseases associated with biological warfare. For each category, the US military has supported research that has provided the basis for many of the vaccines available today. Although preventive measures and the development of drugs have provided some relief from the burden of malaria, dengue, and HIV, the US military continues to fund research and development of prophylactic vaccines that will contribute to force health protection and global health. In the past few years, newly recognized infections with Zika, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome viruses have pushed the US military to fund research and fast track clinical trials to quickly and effectively develop vaccines for emerging diseases. With US military personnel present in every region of the globe, one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain military effectiveness is to develop vaccines against prioritized threats to military members’ health.

Immunogenicity of Viral Vaccines in the Italian Military

“…The military are particularly exposed to infectious diseases as a consequence of their lifestyle with close inter-individual contacts and operational activity [ 1 ]. Even if schedules vary among the armed forces of different countries, vaccination against many diseases using simultaneous inoculations of multiple antigens has been a common practice for many decades.…”

Visualizing the In Vivo Dynamics of Anti-Leishmania Immunity: Discoveries and Challenges

“…undergo sexual and asexual stages and alternate between the human and mosquito hosts. While the live attenuated vaccine did provide protection against wild-type Plasmodium falciparum challenge, RTS,S, a recombinant protein vaccine, which is the only FDA-approved vaccine against a human parasitic disease of any kind to date, only has 26-50% efficacy and only provides short-term protection ( 25 ). Parasites have and continue to evolve with their hosts.…”

Where are all the anthelmintics? Challenges and opportunities on the path to new anthelmintics

“…PDPs for anthelmintic discovery are being led through organizations like Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi: www.dndi.org ) and the World Intellectual Property Research Organization (WIPO) Re:Search consortium ( Ramamoorthi et al, 2014 ). In addition to PDPs, the possibility of leveraging military partnerships, as was done for early anthelmintics by the Rockefeller foundation for hookworm treatment, was raised in the discussion as a source of future human anthelmintic funding and research; building on the already considerable support for vector-borne diseases like malaria and leishmaniasis, together with other communicable diseases that threaten military personnel ( Ratto-Kim et al, 2018 ).…”