5 Things podcast: Anti-science rhetoric heavily funded, well-organized. Can it be stopped?

On a special episode of the 5 Things podcast: Anti-science rhetoric has been around for decades. What's new is that current attacks on science and scientists are coming from well-organized and well-funded groups whose tactics are more aggressive than ever. Dr. Peter Hotez is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. In his new book, "The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning," Dr. Hotez cautions us on the high-stakes dangers of anti-science narratives that are gaining more traction.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Dana Taylor:

nti-science rhetoric has been around for decades. What's new is that this attack on science and scientists is coming from well-organized and well-funded groups whose tactics are more aggressive than ever.

Dr. Peter Hotez is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Hotez, thanks for joining me.

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Thanks so much for having me, Dana.

Dana Taylor:

Well, I want to start with the why of your new book. What compelled you to write it, and why now?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Well, the difference is there's been an anti-vaccine movement around in the United States for at least a couple of decades, and I got involved initially because I, not only a vaccine scientist, I developed low-cost vaccines for global health, but also I have an adult daughter with autism and intellectual disabilities. And years ago I wrote a book called Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism, which kind of made me public enemy number one or two with anti-vaccine groups. But it gave me a front row seat as to what the movement was all about. And I watched in horror over the last few years and accelerated during the pandemic as a movement or an industry that was mostly monetizing the internet on selling phony autism cures and nutritional supplements. And anti-vaccine books have now become more political in nature.

Using propaganda around health freedom and medical freedom, it had gradually taken on political leanings was getting PAC money, Political Action Committee, and that's what came off the rails during the COVID-19 pandemic, where you started to see the anti-vaccine rhetoric and statements made by elected members at the highest level of Congress and the House Freedom Caucus and Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson and federal judges and governors like Governor DeSantis, and then amplified on Fox News on a nightly basis as documented by two groups by Media Matters and a research group at a university in Switzerland.

So that what you're seeing now is becoming a well-organized, well financed political ecosystem. But the biggest driver that compelled me to write the book was the fact that it was killing Americans, and it's backed up by several other similar estimates, is that 200,000 Americans needlessly perished because they refused a COVID vaccine during the delta and BA.1 Waves in the middle of 2021, 2022 after vaccine had become widely available. And that's why we need to care that I felt as a vaccine scientist, I went into this because this was the highest pursuit of science for humanity. And I said along the same lines, now I have to counter this because we were losing so many lives.

Dana Taylor:

Well, as you write in the preface of the book required you to revisit some painful personal experiences. Can you describe one that sticks out to you?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Well, this was the other aspect of the book. Not only were lives being lost and science was being attacked, but also the scientists were being attacked and including myself. What you started to see, for instance, was in 2021, I had a Fox News anchor together with the governor of Florida attacking me on the evening national news broadcast. Why is the governor of Florida attacking a medical school professor in Texas? It made no sense, and then you saw it again in 2022, Tucker Carlson started attacking me actually on the day that I was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize with a colleague for a low-cost COVID vaccines for global health.

So that was taking a very dark turn. Of course, when that happens, it acts like a dog whistle for lots of online attacks on the internet, either through social media or threatening emails, even physical stalkings. I wasn't alone. We're seeing this with other US scientists.

Dana Taylor:

Okay. I want to circle back with something that you just talked about and that is the aggression against science and scientists, whether that be via email, a post on social, or even in person and saying that it's "relatively new and accelerating at a fast clip." What do you mean by that?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Too often we call it misinformation or disinformation as those just a random junk on the internet, and it's not that at all. It's an organized, politically charged, politically-driven anti-science ecosystem and the fact that it's sanctioned by the state, that's the game-changer, that's the scary part, and we haven't had that before.

Dana Taylor:

Well, you mentioned RFK Junior. He is, of course, very anti-vaccine. Does the fact that he's a US presidential candidate worry you?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Well, we actually have two, arguably three now US presidential candidates running on anti-science platform. You have Governor DeSantis of Florida who's gone out of his way to falsely discredit vaccines and target US scientists. That's a concern. You have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Doing the same thing. And even you have President Trump, although I make a point in the book that much of this was after Trump left office, so three US presidential candidates running on this. That's very consistent with what we're seeing, this whole politicization.

And to me, it's abhorrent because I always think of the United States as a nation built in part on the strength of our research universities in our institutions. This is what gave us the Manhattan Project in Silicon Valley and landing on the moon in so many aspects of this country that made us an important nation. And yet now to see it under attack like this is very demoralizing, to say the least. And it's tough to talk about because all of our training as physicians and scientists says, you're not ordinarily supposed to delve into politics, right? We're always supposed to be politically neutral, and I get that. But I think where I drew the line is when it was costing so many lives, so many people were going down this rabbit hole of watching Fox News every evening, or the far-right podcasters or listening to the rhetoric of members of the House Freedom Caucus in the GOP.

Dana Taylor:

Well, it's been known for over two years now that a sizable amount of vaccine hoaxes on social media were propagated by just 12 people. The so-called Disinformation Dozen. This was from research conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. How do you stop people from spreading disinformation?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

There's two ways I look at that. One is, and I am very close with Imran Ahmed, who heads the Center for Countering Digital Hate, and I'm a huge fan of his work, and it's so important. I mean, it's terrible. We have to have an organization called The Center for Countering Digital Hate, isn't it? But that is the reality. My point is that Disinformation Dozen is now expanded into the political sphere, into the political ecosystem. So exactly how you counter it now I think is really challenging because you don't want to go up against First Amendment rights. And I'm about to give you the longest, I don't know the answer to your question answer I can give, which is that in some ways, the health sector doesn't know what to do because it is so firmly rooted now in American politics. As I often like to say, what do you do when to paraphrase Desmond Tutu or Elie Wiesel, when neutrality favors the tormentor, the aggressor?

At the end of the day, I really don't care about your conservative or extreme concepts or values. That's your right as an American citizen. The point is we have to find a way to uncouple the anti-science, anti-vaccine stuff from it because it is costing so many losses in American lives. And it's globalizing now. It's, as I describe, it's moving up into Canada with the Freedom convoys being egged on by some of those same Fox News anchors and same members of the House Freedom Caucus. It's going into Central Europe, into Germany and Austria, where far-right groups are adopting it, and now it's contaminating low and middle-income countries, and it's affecting the uptake of new vaccines and existing vaccines on the African continent, in India and South Asia.

So I met with Dr. Tedros, the Director general of the World Health Organization at the end of last year, to have that conversation with them that this could really erode all of our gains that we've made over the last two decades since the start of the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. So this is a serious dark and lethal force. And when you start talking about 200,000 Americans who perished because of it, that's right up there with anything else that's society concerns itself with, whether it's road traffic accidents or gun violence or suicide or terrorism, you have to now add to the calculus, anti-science activism.

Dana Taylor:

What are some other prescriptive actions you think that we can take at a government or institutional level to counter the anti-vax rhetoric?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Because it's gone into the political realm, what I've said is we need to seek the help and advice of individuals who deal with that sort of thing. So for the Biden administration, I've recommended that we bring in people from Homeland Security, from the Commerce Department, the Justice Department, even the State Department because you have Putin and Russia using their bots and trolls, which are actually sending both pro and anti-vaccine messages because they have a different agenda. They see this as a divisive issue in the country, and so they see it as a way to destabilize our democracy through anti-vaccine, anti-science rhetoric. So that's happening.

And then at the global level, I suggested to Dr. Tedros that we need to bring in other UN agencies that deal with some of these lethal societal forces, maybe even bring in NATO to help us because it's reaching that level of death and destruction.

Dana Taylor:

Well, and finally, what gives you the most hope in reversing this erosion of trust in science and scientists?

Dr. Peter Hotez:

The technology gives me great hope, but our successes are going to be limited. If there's going to be all of this aggressive rhetoric and other forms of aggression and undermine it.

Dana Taylor:

Dr. Hotez's book, the Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning is out on bookshelves. Now, Dr. Hotez, thank you so much for joining.

Dr. Peter Hotez:

Thank you for giving attention to this. I appreciate it.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Shannon Rae Green for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson Will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of 5 Things.