While the world is on an unprecedented trajectory of technology and global interconnectedness, there is a newer, darker threat on the horizon: biowarfare. Speaking at Population Health Colloquium at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University on May 10, 2025, John Norris, JD, MBA, warned ominously. The next great global war, he predicted, will be fought with bioweapons, not with missiles or with poisonous gas. They will be silent, invisible, and calamity-spreading. As a founder and executive chair of Safely2Prosperity, a global organization dedicated to protecting people from threats of infectious disease, Norris called for a radical shifting of global paradigms to counter this existential threat.
A New Kind of Warfare
The former Reagan-era FDA deputy commissioner, Norris, argued that biowarfare represents a paradigm for global threats of insecurity. “The next war which emerges will be a biowar,” Norris predicted, ruling out any prospect for a war fought with either nukes or chemicals. In contrast with a war fought with either nukes or even chemically based missiles, because bioweapons are nearly entirely untraceable, there is no prospect for retaliating immediately. That, Norris said, is what makes them an appealing option for state and non-state actors who wish for maximal destruction with no possibility of direct retaliation.
Their destructive potential is compounded by the fact that they are able to exploit modern global networks. Norris used the case of rapid spread of pathogens with high-speed transport, i.e., 400- or 500-mile-per-hour jumbo jets, which would spread a lethal disease over entire continents within a few hours. In a comparative anecdote from history, he drew upon use of camels and slow-moving ships by which half of the world’s population was decimated by the bubonic plague during the Middle Ages. In today’s hyper-interconnected world, damage by a virulently contagious pathogen is so much more pervasive.
The Lessons of COVID-19
To convey a sense of urgency his message had, Norris again cited COVID-19, which resulted in 7 million deaths worldwide and 1.9 million American deaths. Of those deaths, he approximated, 40% were preventable, and he attributed the high death toll to using “1918 tools for responding to 20th-century challenges.” Failure to use modern, proactive measures, he argued, reflected inherent flaws of global health systems—flaws that would be vulnerable if an intentional biowarfare assault were unleashed.
Norris also extends his criticism beyond pandemics to the broad mission of biosecurity, which he defines as creating “tools, programs, and a structure to prevent, mitigate, and/or control the spread of pathogens.” Biosecurity, he asserted, is less about neutralizing dangerous pathogens and more about preventing or controlling spread. “You can kill five people if it’s lethal and it doesn’t spread,” he explained. “You can kill 100 million people if it’s lethal and it spreads.” That difference, Norris argued, must shape measures for protecting populations at community and global scales.
A Call for BIOSECURITY INVESTMENT
Despite the glaring and pending biologic threat, Norris mentioned a staggering disparity of resources. Only 1-2% of the U.S. national budget is devoted to biosecurity, an amount he estimated would be more like 40%. Alternatively, he wondered about a big nuclear inventory, “How many nuclear weapons do you need?” Shifting money over to biosecurity, nations would be more able to combat inevitable pandemics, epidemics, and localized outbreaks with global connectivity and environmental shifts.
Norris’s company, Safely2Prosperity, is already a leader, working with corporate, non-profit, and government partners on infectious disease threats. The company is particularly concerned with children’s health in nations of sub-Saharan Africa, where thousands of children die every day of treatable infectious disease. If you do not treat that for kids in Africa, you do not learn a lot, and you do not save lives, said Norris. According to him, he laid out a grand mission for his company: saving 1 million lives over six years by implementing effective biosecurity measures.
The Terrifying Reality of Gain-of-Function Research
Complicating the challenge of biosecurity is the controversial practice of gain-of-function research, which is a process of enhancing pathogenicity, or transmissibility, of viruses. Norris argued that the U.S. has funded research of that kind, such as in China, which he described as “our biggest enemy.” He said “every major country has bugs that can kill the world” describing bioweapon potential being spread around the world. The ease with which it is created and shared, along with their potential for a cataclysmic impact, makes biosecurity a priority.
These are created at a time of low confidence in global health institutions, with increasing geopolitical tensions. The ability of a rogue state or organization to release a deliberately designed pathogen is precisely what makes international cooperation and stringent defense mechanisms so critical. Yet, as Norris has argued, today’s world’s response to biosecurity is glaringly inadequate.
Recommendations for the FDA and Beyond
Based on his experience at FDA, there were strong recommendations issued by Norris for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH. Norris urged Makary to “break glass” and be bold, appreciate smart agency employees, and ensure advisory boards include contrarians. “Most boards and most committees are basically useless,” Norris said, asserting that without dissents, leaders wouldn’t know what they were doing wrong. “You need to know where you’re doing it wrong,” he asserted, advocating for a culture of questioning within health policymaker circles.
Beyond FDA, Norris’s message is meant for policymakers, health professionals, and citizens at large. Norris championed the biosecurity profession, describing it as “the last frontier of healthcare.” The field, he asserted, involves immense challenge and unprecedented opportunity for protecting human beings from threats of a biological nature.
A Global Imperative
While the world struggles with the consequences of COVID-19 and with the ongoing threat of future pandemics, Norris’s alerts are a clarion call. The biowarfare threat, coupled with natural pandemic emergence because of global connectivity, calls for a radical recasting of national and global security agendas. Investments must be increased in biosecurity, and world health infrastructure must utilize state-of-the-art tools for prevention and containment of outbreaks. The consequences could be no greater. A pathogen designed, intentionally or unintentionally, has the potential to overshadow all the horrors of past pandemics. In putting biosecurity first, nations are not only avoiding crimes against humanity of biowarfare, but are putting into place a global health infrastructure that will save millions of lives. The vision of Norris is inspirational and somber. As frightening as biowarfare potential is, it also presents a challenge to governments, groups, and people everywhere to join together for a common objective of preserving humanity. And, he said, “We’re about saving lives.” The only question now is whether the world will listen to him before it’s too late.
