Peter J. Hotez - Preventing the Next Pandemic

PREVENTING

THE NEXT PANDEMIC

Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases: The Neglected Tropical Diseases and Their Impact on Global Health and Development, second edition, 2013

Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth, 2016

Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachels Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad, 2018

PETER J. HOTEZ, MD, PHD

Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science

Johns Hopkins University Press

Baltimore

2021 Johns Hopkins University Press

All rights reserved. Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Johns Hopkins University Press

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Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hotez, Peter J., author.

Title: Preventing the next pandemic : vaccine diplomacy in a time of anti-science / Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD.

Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020018801 | ISBN 9781421440385 (hardcover ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421440392 (ebook)

Subjects: MESH: Pandemicsprevention & control | Vaccines | Vaccine-Preventable Diseasesprevention & control | Diplomacy | International Cooperation | Anti-Vaccination Movement

Classification: LCC RA566.27 | NLM WA 105 | DDC 362.19698dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018801

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Frontispiece: Child receiving polio vaccine under armed protection in Somalia.

Photograph by Sebastio Salgado.

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Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible.

To my amazing colleagues and professionals with the United States Department of State, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and US embassies abroad, when I served as US science envoy (201516) and now as a governor of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation

Special thank you and dedication to the anchors and producers at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC for the opportunity and privilege to speak to the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic

T his book reports on the recent and unexpected rise in infectious and tropical diseases owing to twenty-first-century forces: war and conflict, shifting poverty, urbanization, climate change, and a new, troubling anti-science. I explain how through vaccine diplomacy we address this new world order in disease and global health.

My activities and the people I met as both United States science envoy, a position I held in the Obama administration in 2015 and 2016, and subsequently as a member of the board of governors of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation in the Trump administration, inspired the book. Infectious and tropical diseases are now abruptly arising in multiple hotspot areas across the globe. They include the Northern Triangle of Central America, Venezuela, and neighboring countries in South America; the conflict zones on the Arabian Peninsula, especially Syria, Iraq, and Yemen; Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and elsewhere in central and eastern sub-Saharan Africa; and several other places. Now, the planet is being consumed by a COVID-19 pandemic. I explain how vaccine diplomacy might offer new solutions to the devastation caused by infection in these regions and how it might prevent future disease catastrophes. I also report on our current vaccine diplomacy activities and my work as a vaccinologist developing new neglected disease vaccines for the worlds poorest people.

Once again, I want to express profound gratitude to my very important mentors and bosses at Baylor College of MedicineDr. Paul Klotmanand at Texas Childrens HospitalMr. Mark Wallace.

I would like to thank my mentors and colleagues in both the US State Department and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), who provided the oversight for the US Science Envoy Program. They include Catherine Novelli, former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment; assistant secretaries Jonathan Margolis and Judith Garber (now ambassador to Cyprus); John Holdren, former director of the White House OSTP and senior adviser to President Barack Obama; ambassadors Joseph Westphal and Dwight Lamar Bush Sr.; and Douglas Apostle, Kimberly Coleman, Daisy Dix, Donya Eldridge, Kay Hairston, Kia Henry, Patricia Hill, Stephanie Hutchison, Bryce Isham, Mohamed Khalil, Sara Klucking, Amani Meki, Bruce Ruscio, and Matthew West. From the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, I want to thank my current and past colleagues or fellow board of governors members, including Jared Bank, Cathy Campbell, Howard Cedar, Joshua Gordon, Bracha Halaf, Heni Haring, Andrew Hebbeler, Avi Israeli, Rebecca Lynn Keiser, Yair Rotstein, Ido Sofer, Riju Srimal, and Ishi Talmon.

I also would like to acknowledge my mentors at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, former ambassador Edward Djerejian and Neal Lane; at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Texas A&M University, ambassador Andrew Natsios; and at the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University, Gregory Brian Colwell, Clifford Fry, John Junkins, Gerald Parker, deans John August, Eleanor Green, Jay Maddock, and vice chancellor, Dr. Carrie Byington. I also thank Baylor Universitys president Linda Livingstone, provost Nancy Brickhouse, dean Lee Nordt, Lori Baker, Richard Sanker, Dwayne Simmons, and former Baylor president, Judge Kenneth Starr, and his wife, Alice Mendell Starr, for their support.

I also want to thank Dr. David Kaslow, Vice President of Essential Medicines at PATH, and his outstanding team of scientists, including Dr. Fred Cassels, Deborah Higgins, and many others, for their advice in advancing our new COVID-19 vaccine.

Once again, I am grateful to Nathaniel Wolf for his stalwart support and long-standing editorial assistance and guidance, to Douglas Osejo Soriano for administrative assistance, and to Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi and the vaccine research team at the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development for their support and advice. I also want to thank Robin Coleman and my publishers at Johns Hopkins University Press, who again rolled the dice with me for this latest book. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Ann Hotez, and my four adult children, Matthew, Emily, Rachel, and Daniel, and their spouses or significant others, Brooke Hotez, Yan Slavinskiy, and Alexandra Pfeiffer.

PREVENTING

THE NEXT PANDEMIC

I t was my first