22 hours Ago
During my first year as a panelist at CU’s Conference on World Affairs in the 1990s, I was accused (multiple times) of being a “science bigot.” That accusation came from both the right (a local preacher who followed me around to panels to challenge my wayward atheism) and from the left (Boulder-based proponents of various pseudoscientific health “quackeries” — a word I regretted saying out loud, despite its accuracy, at a panel on alternative medicine). But more disturbing than the accusations of science bigotry was the contrary insistence of both sides that “real” science supported their respective viewpoints! Ludicrous cultic devotions parading as scientific facts are metastasizing out of Washington D.
C. and across the U.S.
today. One of the more egregious examples — and it is hard to pick just one — comes to us courtesy of current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
At his Congressional hearing this past February, Kennedy was lightly challenged on his anti-vaccination stances, particularly for his continuing statements that the rise in autism is a result of child vaccination policy and the inherent danger of vaccines. In response, Kennedy flippantly cited “a new study” that had just been published that supported his position. “I just want to follow the science,” he insisted.
We know now that statement was breathtaking in its brazen disingenuity. I forced myself to read the study he refers to, which turns out to be just a rehash of his 2003 anti-vaccination book (“Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak”), featuring largely the same cast of deplorable quacks and the same repeatedly disproven claims. I had to do a bit of digging even to find this article since it is not printed in any of the medical literature.
It appears only on a WordPress blog site gussied up to look like a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Many scientists who live in and understand the real world of immunology and disease have weighed in, giving that article the universal panning it deserves. And yet a whole swath of humanity, including an alarming number of people who should know better, blindly accept Kennedy’s baseless and stupid assertions.
Worse, they accept the policies that are being built on these deadly lies. Several friends have asked me why I get so angry with the actions of Kennedy and his syndicate. It is a fair question.
Let me preface my answer by saying I understand that we are under the jurisdiction of the First Amendment, and thus I support their right to say things that might be repugnant and even stuff that is outright false. But the First Amendment does not protect speech that results in death or injury to others. And it is not just the anti-vaccine anti-science idiocy that is infuriating: It is also the Medicaid gutting, the anti-LGBTQ+ actions, the corruption of education, the elimination of foreign aid for health and wellness in impoverished areas of the world, the forced dehumanizing immigrant removal, and so on.
What we are witnessing now are dictatorial actions aimed at causing deep pain to and even elimination of individuals or classes of people. Trump et al. obscure their malevolence by shrugging that some pain is “unavoidable” in Making America Great Again.
But their real motivation is very black-and-white (or just white) to those of us who can still separate reality from fiction. In calling certain practitioners of dubious alternative medicine “quacks” thirty years ago, I learned a lesson about tempering my language to the situation (getting shouted down by a lot of outraged quacking is not fun!). But I am rediscovering the equal truth that there are critical times when one needs to be loud and unequivocal in choice of language.
This is one of those moments. What these people are doing is, at its base, manslaughter, committed — for now — against the most vulnerable people at the edges of society. So, in answer to my friends’ question, it is the callous combination of harmful actions and specious appeals to pseudo-science that makes me — and many others — so mad.
But being mad is not enough: We need to channel that anger into efforts to prevent further damage and to ensure that this whole misanthropic crew is ultimately held accountable for the carnage they are inflicting. Fintan Steele is an ex-Benedictine monk and priest with a Ph.D.
in biology/genetics. He spent most of his life in science communications, including scientific publishing and, most recently, for biopharma and academic centers. He and his husband live in Hygiene.
Email: [email protected]..
