Mark Kelly, George Washington, and the Flu Vaccine

Is Mark Kelly right that SecWar Hegseth doesn't understand science?

Every time Senator Mark Kelly claims that George Washington had a better understanding of science and military readiness than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — because Hegseth made the flu vaccine optional — he’s half-right and completely wrong at the same time.

meme circulating on internet after Senator Kelly’s tweet about vaccination

George Washington ordered the variolation of the Continental Army in December 1777. This was not vaccination. But, it was the first mass inoculation of a military. Variolation involved taking material from actual smallpox sores and introducing it into healthy soldiers to create a milder infection. It worked reasonably well — the survival rate was around 98% compared to ~65% for a full-blown smallpox infection — but it was still dangerous, sometimes fatal, and nothing like modern vaccination.

The actual smallpox vaccine wasn’t developed until 1796 by Edward Jenner in England and didn’t reach the Americas until 1798. Washington likely had no real knowledge of the smallpox vaccine when he died in 1799.

Fast forward to today.

Over 99% of healthy adults who contract influenza survive. The flu overwhelmingly kills people over 65 and those with serious pre-existing conditions — exactly the demographics that are largely ineligible for military service. For healthy troops in their prime (the fittest segment of the American population), the flu vaccine has essentially zero meaningful impact on military readiness.

This is why Secretary Hegseth made the flu vaccine optional rather than mandatory. It was a rational, evidence-based decision, not some anti-science stance.

Senator Kelly’s attempt to invoke George Washington as a gotcha is historically sloppy. Washington used the best tool available to him in 1777 — a risky but necessary form of inoculation — to keep his army alive. Hegseth is doing the same thing in 2026: making decisions based on actual risk to military readiness rather than performative public health theater.

The science didn’t change. The politics did.