The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning

The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2023

240pp / $$19.59 / 9781421447223

Amazon

Goodreads

The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning by Peter J. Hotez is a short, frightening analysis of the rise of anti-science sentiment in the United States and throughout the world. In it, Hotez argues that “anti-science has become a dangerous social force that threatens both our national security and global stature as a nation renowned for its research institutions and universities (xii).”

Hotez is particularly well-suited to provide such analysis and warning. He is a well-respected pediatrician and scientist. His research focuses on vaccine development for tropical diseases plaquing developing countries. For example, his work has been critical for developing a vaccine for hookworm (a vaccine trial is currently running in Africa), Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, and schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease caused by flatworms affecting more than 200 million people worldwide. He also developed a vaccine for COVID-19 whose stability allowed its use in countries where keeping doses of vaccine at very low temperatures (<-100^oF), like the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines we are familiar with require, is difficult or impossible. He is the author of countless scientific journal articles as well as several books. He is an outspoken vaccine and science advocate—a face seen regularly on news outlets as diverse as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. He has also been on the receiving end of violent threats by anti-science extremists and has had to seek assistance from law enforcement for his own and his family’s protection. His expertise and experiences are not the only reason he has a unique perspective on the growing anti-science sentiment in the United States and beyond. His daughter has autism and in 2018, Hotez published Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism, defending vaccines and outlining the discovery of a gene variant through whole exome sequencing that scientists believe is a major cause of his daughter’s autism. This gene variant encodes the instructions to make a protein important for communication between brain cells.

Hotez begins this book by describing the aggression towards scientists which he convincingly argues is new and accelerating. He contrasts this with the historical commitment of the United States to science and technology—a proud history of a country that leads the way in STEM. He blames politicians and news outlets for pushing the misinformation that has provided fuel for the fire of United States anti-science sentiment—a perspective that is now globalizing. Then he turns his attention to the historical roots of health freedom and describes how the rhetoric of health freedom was coopted by politicians and anti-science advocates, especially during the recent pandemic, boldly claiming that “the tremendous loss in human life from COVID-19 immunization refusal was not an accident but an orchestrated product of a networked political ecosystem of anti-science extremism (p. 65).”

In chapter six, Hotez makes an interesting connection between anti-science movements and authoritarianism, looking back on Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. I’m still pondering the arguments in this chapter, wondering if authoritarianism is narrowly anti-science or more broadly anti-intellectual, of which science is a part.

The heart of his argument, and, I thought, best chapters, were chapters seven and eight in which he tries to expand his argument to include issues of anti-science other than vaccines. He describes the consequences of anti-vaccination during the pandemic including long COVID, taxing healthcare systems, children who have lost parents, mental health, and continued reductions in vaccine rates for childhood disease accompanied by a return of those diseases. Hotez laments the case of an unvaccinated man contracting wild polio in 2022 and the rising numbers of measles outbreaks around the United States.

Hotez ends by describing scientists as “perplexed about how to proceed” (p. 135) in light of aggressive, well-funded anti-science movements that are highly politicized. He expressed frustration that efforts to uncouple anti-science from political extremism have been thoroughly rejected. He briefly addresses the role of religion focusing primarily on Judaism (Hotez is Jewish), Islam, and Christianity, especially evangelicalism and how entangled anti-science has become in some of these religious groups.

I was glad I read this book. It put some evidentiary meat on the bones of my own concerns about growing anti-science sentiment, especially among many of my sisters and brothers in Christ. However, I did find some gaps and weaknesses. Throughout the book Hotez mentions other anti-science movements including those who will not accept climate science, calls for funding bans, and restrictions on stem cell research. He briefly covers the consequences we face when we deny or oppose scientific advances in areas other than vaccines but, given the broad nature of the book’s title, I would have liked to see other anti-science movements and their consequences covered with more depth. Since the book is quite repetitive, there is room to broaden the lens. Hotez seems to reserve his ire against anti-vaccine attitudes for those on the political far right, but I see similarly strong anti-vaccine views in a significant number of people on the political far left. While his book makes a strong, detailed, evidence-based case for the safety and efficacy of vaccines, he quickly concedes that people are not convinced by data or evidence. So, I must ask myself who the audience for this book is. I doubt those who are already strongly anti-science will pick it up. Those who are already pro-science probably don’t need convincing. I’m guessing those who do read this book will, like me, appreciate the detailed arguments, the evidence he presents, and perhaps, armed with more evidence, find creative ways to talk to those we love about the importance of science.