According to the 2025 U.S. Intelligent Threat Assessment, the next terror attack won't involve highjacking a plane. It'll be invading our DNA.
The 2025 Report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirms that Russia and North Korea possess active offensive biological weapons programs. Bad operators China and Iran are also identified as actively pursuing bio weapons. But particularly ominous are the terrorist organizations. Helped by the increased speed of AI assistants, terrorist groups are pursuing biological materials for use as weapons. The report specifically mentions Al-Qaeda's pursuit of anthrax, botulism, and plague. ISIL also gets called out for potentially possessing tools and know-how to produce these weapons. In addition, lone wolves and domestic militia groups are referenced as intending to use these horrific means to reach their goals.
AI has boosted nearly every facet of society. Unfortunately, biological warfare is one of them. Add to that, advances in DNA and RNA editing have lowered the bar required to produce catastrophic biological agents. What once took significant time and resources can now be done more easily. Pathogens can be genetically modified to increase their transmissibility and deadliness. AI tools can be used to identify optimal mutations to enhance a virus's severity.
Terrorists without biology experience can produce full-length genomes using bench-top DNA synthesis machines -- like 3D printers for DNA sequences. They can even order pathogen DNA from providers online.
It's comforting in this strange new world, that as bio weapons advance, so do the defenses.
One of the most advanced protections against viral bio weapons are mRNA vaccines. The technology has been around for forty years, but it's only in the last ten that breakthroughs made them practical for human use. Rather than give your body a piece of an actual virus so your immune system learns how to fight it, like traditional vaccines, mRNA is more precise. This new medical technology gives your cells instructions via messenger RNA to make a harmless piece of the virus. By doing this, your immune system learns to recognize it. Your body gets a blueprint for the bio hazard. According to Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, "the success of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has demonstrated that this technology can be rapidly adapted, making it a powerful tool for future outbreaks and biothreats."
One of the biggest advantages of mRNA vaccines is the speed with which they can be developed. If a new pathogen spreads, new instructions can be put into a revised vaccine. They can be designed in weeks, once the pathogen's genetic code is known.
And if bio weapons are unleashed, speed will be key.
That's why it was puzzling to learn this week that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services cancelled all 22 mRNA projects managed by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA.
According to the New York Times, the cancellations "dismayed scientists, many of whom regard mRNA shots as the best option for protecting Americans in a pandemic." In the same article, Chris Meekins, former assistant secretary for pandemic preparedness in the first Trump administration, expressed concern that the mRNA vaccines were a key part of biowarfare defense. Said Meekins, "These tools serve as a deterrent to prevent other nations from using certain biological agents."
So why cancel the projects?
Mr. Kennedy asserted that the vaccines weren't effective against respiratory viruses, which is heavily disputed by those who feel it saved millions from COVID-19 deaths. He also said mRNA vaccines were vulnerable to mutations, .because they are specifically 'programmed' to fight one version of a virus. RFK Jr. worried it wouldn't take much change in the virus to make the vaccine completely ineffective. On top of that, he argued mRNA vaccines actually help drive new mutations in viruses that prolong pandemics.
It doesn't make sense that these doubts would drive the government to completely abandon the technology. Why not continue the research and address the concerns? The mRNA viruses have been proven effective. The technology won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2023.
Or maybe there's some reason the government doesn't want these defenses out in the population.
It seems crazy to think we are not being allowed access to vaccines that prepare us for biowarfare, unless we are not meant to be prepared. Unless we are the targets.
Could the government have plans to unleash pathogens on its own citizens? It's way too extreme to be a possibility.
Except it's happened before.
In 1977, congress declassified a test by the U.S. Navy called Operation Sea Spray. In it, bacteria was released over San Francisco to study how a biological attack might disperse in a coastal city. The goal was to simulate how airborne pathogens might spread. The people were unaware they were being infected.
The Department of Energy and Department of Defense covertly carried out radiation studies on U.S. citizens, injecting patients with plutonium without their consent to see how it affected the human body.
As recently as 2016, the Department of Homeland Security was rumored to have released gases in crowded subway platforms to study airflow and dispersion without alerting the public.
Is it likely more plans are in the works that require citizens to be mRNA vaccine free?
All the mRNA projects defunded were under BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. It's disturbing to note that this is the agency responsible for medical countermeasures to bioterrorism threats, including pandemics and emerging infections diseases. This is the group meant to protect us from enemy viruses.
Why end the development of mRNA vaccines that might protect us against these attacks? Unless the Government would prefer we not be protected. Maybe BARDA was getting too close to actually making us all immune to whatever they've got planned.