PLOS BIOLOGY

PERSPECTIVE

Mounting antiscience aggression in the

Vereinigte Staaten
Peter J. Hotez ID1,2,3,4*
1 Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics, Molecular Virology &
Microbiology, and Center for Health Policy, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine,
Houston, Texas, United States of America, 2 Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United
States of America, 3 Hagler Institute of Advanced Study and Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Texas
A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America, 4 Center for Health and Biosciences,
James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America

* [email protected]

There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the

United States. It’s arising from far-right extremism, including some
elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets
that target prominent biological scientists fighting the COVID-19
pandemic.

a1111111111 A band of ultraconservative members of the US Congress and other public officials with far-
a1111111111 right leanings are waging organized and seemingly well-coordinated attacks against prominent
a1111111111
US biological scientists. In parallel, conservative news outlets repeatedly and purposefully pro-
a1111111111
a1111111111 mote disinformation designed to portray key American scientists as enemies. As a conse-
quence, many of us receive threats via email and on social media, while some are stalked at
home, to create an unprecedented culture of antiscience intimidation.
Over the spring and summer of 2021, four major incidents stand out. First, Georgia Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) introduced house bill 2316 [1]. The “Fire Fauci Act” called for
OPEN ACCESS halting payment of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s salary as Director of the National Institute of Allergy
Citation: Hotez PJ (2021) Mounting antiscience and Infectious Diseases, and auditing his digital correspondence and financial transactions.
aggression in the United States. PLoS Biol 19(7): Green’s follow-up press conference on 21 June 2021 included 13 Republican House supporters
e3001369. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. or co-sponsors, possibly the largest congressional delegation in modern times to single out
pbio.3001369
and attempt to humiliate a prominent American scientist.
Published: July 28, 2021 Also in June, the Republicans organized a House Select Subcommittee on the origins of
Copyright: © 2021 Peter J. Hotez. This is an open COVID-19 with the presumption that it was ignited by gain-of-function genetic engineering
access article distributed under the terms of the research from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite evidence pointing to spillover from a
Creative Commons Attribution License, which viral infection in bats to additional mammals and ultimately humans accounting for previous
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and coronavirus epidemics [2], the hearings took on a sinister tone, pointing fingers at virologists
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
both in the US and China. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), stated that Dr. Fauci was "afraid of some-
author and source are credited.
thing" and falsely claimed that he was covering up the engineering of the SARS-CoV-2 corona-
Funding: The author received no specific funding virus [3]. The far-right media harasses or stalks other prominent US scientists, including Dr.
for this work.
Peter Daszak who heads the EcoHealth Alliance and conducts research on the zoonotic origins
Competing interests: The author has declared that of human virus infections [1].
no competing interests exist.

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Vaccines and vaccine scientists are also targeted. Alongside the June Republican COVID-
19 origins hearings, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) organized a roundtable in Milwaukee to
highlight the rare adverse side effects from COVID-19 vaccines [4], as evening Fox News
anchors promoted fake claims regarding deaths from COVID-19 vaccinations [5]. In July,
Rep. Green declared on Twitter that a COVID-19 vaccine is “a political tool used to control
people”, while Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) said that door-to-door COVID-19 vaccina-
tions were just a step away from US Government confiscations of guns and bibles, and Rep.
Lauren Boebert (R-CO) referred to vaccinators as “needle Nazis”. Days later, the medical
director for vaccines in the Tennessee Department of Health was abruptly terminated for her
efforts to vaccinate minors (14 and up) without parental consent. These actions were concur-
rent with state efforts to halt vaccine advocacy and outreach to teens and adolescents, and at a
time when the delta variant is accelerating [6]. As a vaccine scientist and author of a book
explaining why autism, including my adult daughter’s autism, is unrelated to vaccines [7], I
am also a target of antivaccine activists, including those writing menacingly about “patriots”
who will seek me out. During a June 2021 interview with the staunchly conservative Florida
Governor, a Fox News anchor referred to me as “infamous”, and “notorious” [8].
These events have context. Prior to 2021, a program of antiscience disinformation that dis-
missed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic was aggressively pursued by a White House
committed to policies of “America First”. The America First element of the far right focuses on
nativism, anti-immigration, and a foreign policy built around strong military build-up and
deterrence, and confrontation with China. A darker view links it to voter suppression, and loy-
alty tests to the former President that question the veracity of the 2020 Presidential election.
Harvard University political scientist, Steven Levitsky (the co-author of How Democracies Die),
point out how these elements converge to form a modern day authoritarian regime [9], seeking
to concentrate power among a selected few while limiting the reach of opposition groups.
Historically, such regimes viewed scientists as enemies of the state. In his 1941 essay, Science
in the Totalitarian State [10], Waldemar Kaempffert, outlines details using the examples of
Nazism under Hitler, Fascism under Mussolini, and Marxism and Leninism [10]. For example,
under Stalin, the study of genetics and relativity physics were treated as dangerous western the-
ories, and potentially in conflict with official social philosophies of state [11]. Today, there
remain examples of authoritarian regimes that hold similar views. In 2019, the Hungarian
Government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took over the control of the Hungarian
Academy of Scientists. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro cut funding for Brazilian scientific
institutions and universities while downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic or
undermining evidence of deforestation in the Amazon due to climate change.
Such activities are sometimes conducted under an alternative or replacement intellectual
framework. In the book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Anne
Applebaum illustrates the rationale for authoritarian targeting, and ultimately replacement, of
the intelligentsia, including the scientists [12]. She cites the work of Julien Benda, a French
essayist who in his 1927 book, The Betrayal of the Intellectuals (in French, La trahison de
clercs), identifies the need to establish a core element of intellectuals to legitimize the authori-
tarian regime. To dismantle a legitimate scientific infrastructure it becomes essential to create
an alternative narrative. For that reason Orbán does not close the Hungarian Academy of Sci-
ences, but seizes its control. In the 1930s and 40s, Stalin replaced Vavilov with Trofim Lysenko
and his pseudoscientific theories of vernalization [11]. Along similar lines, the rise of antisci-
ence in an authoritarian America is notable for its intellectual cover. Experts affiliated with far
right-leaning think tanks have adopted positions on herd immunity, vaccinations, and other
COVID-19 prevention approaches that fit the America First narrative. In some cases these
views are reinforced by intellectuals on the dark web.

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Fig 1. Aggression against science or US scientists in the Year 2021.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001369.g001

In summary, the aggression against science and scientists in America arises from three
sources: 1) Far-right members of the US Congress, 2) the conservative news outlets and 3) a
group of thought leaders who provide intellectual underpinnings to fuel the first two elements
(Fig 1).
For researchers working in the pandemic response to continue to do so effectively, we seek
help in halting the aggression. This is essential not only for our personal safety or national
security, but also the reality that attacking science and scientists will both promote illness and
cause loss of life. For example, currently more than 99% of the COVID-19 deaths now occur
among unvaccinated people, and almost as many hospitalizations. To begin, the following
steps must be considered:
• The President of the United States, together with science leaders at the federal agencies
should prepare and deliver a robust, public, and highly visible statement of support. The
statement would reaffirm the contribution of scientists across United States history.
• We should look at expanded protection mechanisms for scientists currently targeted by far-
right extremism in the United States. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) has introduced a bill known
as the Scientific Integrity Act of 2021 (H.R. 849) to protect US Government scientists from

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political interference, but this needs to be extended for scientists at private research universi-
ties and institutes. Still another possibility is to extend federal hate-crime protections.
As Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once pointed out, neutrality or
silence favors the oppressor. We must take steps to protect our scientists and take swift and
positive action to counter the growing wave of far-right antiscience aggression. Not taking
action is a tacit endorsement, and a guarantee that the integrity and productivity of science in
the United States will be eroded or lose ground.

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