Trump’s anti-science appointees ‘drive demonisation of scholars’

Researchers who have stood up against vaccine scepticism are likely to face increased threats as Donald Trump appoints “anti-science” figures to his administration, experts have warned.

Since Mr Trump was elected US president on 5 November, high-profile scientists have been deluged with abuse on social media, most notably with renewed calls for Anthony Fauci, America’s former public health chief, to be prosecuted and “held responsible” for his advice during the pandemic.

There are concerns that the appointments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who has repeatedly made false claims about vaccines, autism and Covid, and has been picked as health secretary – and Elon Musk, another vaccine sceptic who is leading on government efficiency, may embolden anti-vaxxers, including in Congress.

Peter Hotez, the creator of a low-cost Covid jab and a target for anti-vaxxers for many years, has experienced an uptick in online abuse since Mr Trump’s victory, but the Baylor University biologist told Times Higher Education that he saw recent events as “mostly just more of the same”.

He was worried, however, that the “politically motivated anti-vaccine movement” that saw “200,000 Americans needlessly perish because they refused a Covid vaccine” was “extending to childhood immunisations”.

Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, believed the elevation of anti-vaxxers to government was deeply concerning because it would be seen to validate the views of those who have threatened Professor Hotez and other experts.

The threats against Professor Hotez from politicians have mostly amounted to “harassment thus far demanding correspondence and requiring him to testify before Congress”, but the anti-scientist sentiment stoked in Washington could have more serious consequences, Dr Baker continued.

Along with other scientists, Professor Hotez would be “worried that he will face a situation where the full fury of the anti-vaxxers is unleashed with no one in a position of authority prepared to stand up for him or for modern medicine and science more generally”.

“To be clear, there is corruption in the system – the opioid epidemic is the most visible evidence – but these [anti-vaccine] people are not interested in cleaning up corruption. They are interested in tearing down a system that has led to longer, better lives for billions of people,” said Dr Baker.

While Professor Hotez has called for scientists to receive “better support from the societies, college presidents [and] elected leaders who care”, Mr Trump’s explicit threat to tax university endowments and to fine institutions perceived to be pursuing “woke” agendas might make this support much harder to come by than it was in 2016, one university dean told THE.

Her institution was already monitoring internal correspondence given the “concern that whatever we circulate publicly could be used against the college at some point down the line”, said the school leader, who asked not to be named.

“There is a real concern about the censorship of any research and teaching engaged with issues that are out of alignment with the incoming government’s ideology,” she continued.

“It certainly seems likely that federal funds might be withheld if a college or university continues to offer degrees in gender studies, African American studies, et cetera. This is not 2016 – no one is in the streets protesting.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com