Saving Millions of Lives at Warp Speed with Dr. Matt Hepburn

The Adrenaline Zone

On this week’s episode of The Adrenaline Zone, Sandy and Sandra are joined by former army doctor and infectious disease physician Matt Hepburn, who led the COVID-19 vaccine development effort with Operation Warp Speed. Matt opens their conversation by sharing how his parents instilled in him a sense of service to others and his country that led him to a career in military medicine, taking him from the ROTC in college to working across the US government. He speaks in detail about his work with DARPA and its philosophy of taking risks to encourage breakthrough innovations before discussing how Operation Warp Speed also balanced risk with a commitment to safety to make COVID vaccines available as soon as possible. Matt then discusses the challenge and rewards of bringing together different cultures of expertise from medicine and the military to work on the COVID response and his role as translator between those two worlds.

Next, Matt gives insight into the logistical challenges of distributing the COVID vaccines and explains that the team’s military elements were instrumental in this respect as they have great experience and skill in operational planning. Not only that, but he points out that military leadership teaches you to make decisions in the face of uncertainty and take action where others might hesitate, something that was crucial given the unpredictable development of the pandemic. Then Matt discusses the difficulty of effectively getting the vaccine message out to the public and how fear and sensationalism can distort perceptions—but he also sees the hope in this situation and the opportunity for people to take more responsibility for their own health. He also addresses what the future might look like with COVID and how the government is dealing with the new monkeypox outbreak while fighting against the public’s pandemic fatigue. And finally, Matt reflects on the importance of risk takers in the effort against COVID and his hope that such people are encouraged to keep going against criticism because society needs those who are willing to take a leap in the face of uncertainty.

The Finer Details of this Episode:

• Balancing innovation, risk, and speed in a pandemic
• The logistical challenges of distributing vaccines
• Making decisions in the face of uncertainty
• Politicization and public perception
• Dealing with the monkeypox outbreak

Quotes:

“It’s been an incredibly rewarding career because the mission or the purpose is to serve those who serve us. So I think we have a solemn obligation to protect those that are in harm’s way and to take care of their families as well. And I think one of the best ways to do that is offer them world-class health care.”

“The mantra of DARPA is ‘breakthrough innovation for national security.’ The DARPA leadership had, I think, the prescience and does have the prescience to say that pandemics, outbreaks of biological threats are national security, one of our greatest national security threats and challenges. But if we truly want to be breakthrough, you have to take risks.”

“A lot of people, especially, you know, in large organizations, are very hesitant. They want, they need more information. ‘Well, we need more data. We’re not going to make this decision. We’re going to postpone this, we’re going to postpone that.’ And I think military leadership really teaches you, you’ve got to act. And you’re gonna act on limited information, you’re going to have as much at the time, but you have to act.”

“You can’t motivate people by fear. You know, a lot of people said, ‘Well, why don’t we prepare for pandemics?’ Well, people don’t want to prepare, you know, and that’s an issue that we’re dealing with now. And like, how do we prepare for the future?”

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