War spurs medical innovation. Ambulances to swiftly deliver the casualties of Napoleon’s armies to field surgeons were the brainchild of Jean-Dominique Larrey. Florence Nightingale established professional nursing in the Crimea. The Kaiser’s War brought the Thomas Splint, reducing mortality and amputation following limb fracture; 1939-45 spurred Florey and Chain’s development of penicillin and McIndoe’s reconstructive plastic surgery. All are now integral to civilian healthcare. mRNA vaccines are offspring of George Bush’s ‘War on Terror’. The idea of mRNA vaccines goes back to Robert Malone’s discoveries of the late 1980s, but he was unable to pursue them and the patents passed...