Trump got shots because he knows vaccines work

It's an appropriate time to reflect on the power of vaccination and how many lives new shots have saved in recent years. As Senators Bill Cassidy and John Barrasso both physicians noted last month, Operation Warp Speed, which President Donald Trump launched during his first term to accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, helped prevent around 1.6 million hospitalizations and 235,000 deaths in the United States.

The approach exemplified by Operation Warp Speed should be at the heart of the Trump administration's vaccine policy during its second term.

Vaccines prevented mass hospitalizations and deaths

Its impact is hard to overstate. Globally, the COVID shots are estimated to have saved an astounding 20 million lives in the first year of vaccination alone.

It's just the latest in a long line of health gains made possible by vaccination. According to one recent study, vaccines have saved 154 million lives in the last half-century 101 million of which were infants.

Consider what the measles vaccine accomplished. Before it became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15. In the U.S., around 6,000 people died of measles each year. These deaths could be gruesome. Many kids who contracted the virus would experience painful symptoms like pneumonia and brain swelling before succumbing.

That began to change in 1963, with the launch of the first measles vaccine. By the end of the 20th century, measles was officially eliminated in the U.S.

From measles to polio, vaccination has turned once-feared childhood diseases into distant memories. Shots against just 14 diseases have cut infant mortality by 40% a triumph of science and policy alike.

The next generation of

vaccines traces back to

Operation Warp Speed

The biggest milestones in vaccine development might still lie in the future thanks in no small part to Operation Warp Speed. The project super-charged work on mRNA vaccines, which are now among the most promising areas in drug development.

Unlike previous vaccines, this new crop of shots won't be reserved for infectious diseases alone. There are currently more than 120 different clinical trials investigating how mRNA vaccines can use the body's own immune system to battle cancers like melanoma, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and numerous other potentially fatal malignancies.

One recent study found that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines helped patients with cancer respond better to treatment. And in the near future, mRNA inoculations could be used to treat conditions ranging from heart attack to tuberculosis and cystic fibrosis.

Should even a small fraction of these vaccines prove successful, Operation Warp Speed and President Trump will deserve at least some of the credit.

Trump's own vaccination underscores the stakes

There's been a lot of uncertainty about the president's views on vaccines during his second term, given the disparate views of some of his advisers. And he hasn't stopped his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from chipping away at the legacy of Operation Warp Speed by terminating federal funding for research into mRNA vaccines.

But if we want to know what Trump's approach to vaccines is, we should listen to what the man himself says. "Pure and simple they work," he said during an Oval Office meeting in September. "They're not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used."

The president has heeded his own advice. In early October, he received COVID and flu shots himself.

It's heartening to see the president lead by example and demonstrate through his actions just how powerful vaccines can be.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The World's Medicine Chest: How America Achieved Pharmaceutical Supremacy - and How to Keep It (Encounter 2025). Follow her on X @sallypipes.

Your Turn

Sally Pipes

Guest columnist