Mr. President:

For the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened our health, halted our economy, and disrupted our lives in previously unimaginable ways. Now, as vaccine rollout begins in the United States and Europe, we face a new challenge. While people in wealthy countries will likely be vaccinated before the end of this year, others around the world will not have access to any vaccines until 2023.

Unequal access to vaccines threaten lives everywhere. The fewer people vaccinated globally, the more likely that vaccine resistant variants will emerge. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that viruses know no borders, and any successful public health response requires a global solution. Already, we have seen vaccine resistant variants have spread to cities in the United States. The more we allow these variants to spread, the more we risk undoing our progress domestically and globally, and the more people will die.

The United States heavily funded the development of mRNA vaccines and owns critical intellectual property protecting the technology, allowing your administration fast track vaccine production right now. A recent report from PrEP4All outlines how, with these tools, the United States can build enough vaccine manufacturing capacity to vaccinate the entire world for less than we spend on the COVID-19 response daily. Partnering with a private vaccine manufacturer to operate these facilities, as is done in the Department of Energy and Department of Defense facilities, would allow such plants to begin manufacturing vaccines rapidly. By building government owned manufacturing plants and leveraging its position as a co-inventor of an mRNA vaccine, the U.S. government can help end this pandemic once and for all.

We call on your administration to build government-owned manufacturing facilities to make enough mRNA vaccines to vaccinate the world. Taxpayer funded research can and should be used to protect American lives and public health. Amid a global pandemic, the only way we can ensure our safety and the reopening of our economy is through global vaccination. Furthermore, government owned facilities allow us to plan for the future, ensuring that we have enough manufacturing capacity to combat future pandemics and variants with mRNA vaccines as they arise.

National emergencies require bold solutions. It is time we use all our available tools to protect public health before we regret it.

Signed,