Si Dunn

Over the past two decades, medical researcher Peter J. Hotez’s efforts to develop effective, low-cost vaccines for tropical diseases and COVID-19 have brought him numerous plaudits, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Yet, as he notes in his book “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science,” his work has also drawn barrages of online and telephoned death threats. And he has had numerous face-to-face encounters with protesters strongly opposed to a variety of vaccinations and vaccine mandates for children and adults.

An MD and PhD, Hotez is a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He also is founding dean of Baylor’s National School of Tropical Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development.

Many anti-vaxxers, he notes, believe certain vaccines can cause autism, birth defects, or other conditions, and their views now are being echoed and amplified by misinformation groups that claim mandated vaccinations also violate Americans’ “health freedom.” This coordinated activism, Hotez warns, “goes beyond vaccines to attack multiple facets of biomedical sciences in the United States. It has evolved into an all-encompassing program embraced by a US political system on the right acting out strong libertarian or extreme conservative beliefs.”

Medical researchers and other scientists, Hotez contends, should be “above politics, intently focused on finding the truth, understanding the natural world, and applying our discoveries to improve people’s lives.” But anti-science aggression is forcing them to face blowback they never expected, often without the training and support they need to speak up and fight back.

One recent, high-profile example of anti-science aggression occurred when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Center for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory panel. “The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of vaccines to the CDC,” USA Today reported. “It is comprised of medical and public health experts who develop recommendations on the use of vaccines in the civilian population of the United States.”

Kennedy claimed the committee was being revamped to prioritize “the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda”—by replacing President Biden’s appointees with Trump loyalists.

Hotez’s well-written book is organized into eight focused chapters, with titles such as “An Army of Patriots Turns Against the Scientists”, “Health Freedom Propaganda in America,” and “A Tough Time to be a Scientist.” He recounts some of his personal battles with anti-science activists and big-time conservative media skeptics of immunization, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and the toll it took on him and his family.

The book provides important overviews of how anti-science sentiments have taken root and metastasized in Congress, in state governments, in conservative media, in conservative intellectual circles, in America’s court system, and now in Canada, Europe, and Africa. And he outlines a plan “to begin to restore the American people’s trust in science and scientists.”

“The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science” should be essential reading for anyone concerned about current and future government and public support for vaccines, biomedical research, and most other areas of science, including air quality, water quality, and climate change.

“We have entered,” Hotez states, “a very dark and scary chapter in the intellectual life of the nation, one of a sort I thought had not been seen since the McCarthy era.” He adds: “I’m fearful for the future of our country and its scientific institutions. I’m worried for my scientific colleagues and for my personal safety and that of my own family. It is essential that we somehow defeat the anti-science monster or at least find a way to keep it in check, walled off from the American scientific enterprise.”

“The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning,” by Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats

Si Dunn reviews books for Lone Star Literary Life (lonestarliterary.com) and is a freelance writer based in Massachusetts. He is a former reporter and photographer for daily newspapers in Texas and Arkansas and has written several books including “Dark Signals,” a Vietnam War memoir, and “Erwin’s Law,” a detective novel.