Anti-science rhetoric is organized movement that's killing people, prominent physician says

An aggressive anti-science movement killed thousands of Americans during COVID-19 and is now a global health threat, a prominent scientist, author and pediatrician says.

Dr. Peter Hotez's outspoken advocacy for the COVID-19 vaccine goes directly against vaccine disinformation espoused by public figures such as independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and podcaster Joe Rogan. That has made Hotez a direct target for the anti-vaccine movement.

Hotez, author of the recent book, "The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning," needs a security detail whenever he appears in public because of continued threats against himself and his family. He has been stalked, he said. As he spoke at Arizona State University's downtown Phoenix campus on Thursday evening, security officers kept watch.

When Hotez speaks about the problem with science disinformation it is not with anger. In his book, he mourns what he characterizes as the preventable deaths of about 200,000 unvaccinated Americans who died of COVID-19 after May 2021, when the vaccine was widely available at no cost. Hotez sees those people who lost their lives as victims, not enemies, and expresses urgency and alarm at what he says has become a global problem.

Hotez's history with researching and developing vaccines goes back to before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, he wrote a book about his daughter titled "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey As a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician and Autism Dad" that goes into detail about how and why vaccines don't cause autism.

While a 1998 scientific paper linking autism to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine has long been debunked, the belief that they are linked has persisted in part through an anti-vaccine industry that developed around that time, some of it monetized with books and unproven "wellness" products, Hotez said, and has escalated into what it is now ― an organized movement.

"In addition to all the social disruption from the pandemic, there has been now a permanent tear in the public trust and our ability to vaccinate kids because of a rise in anti-vaccine activism," Hotez, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, told the Phoenix audience.

Thursday's event was organized by the Arizona-based nonprofit Integrity Project and hosted by ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College Center for Law, Science and Innovation and included both a talk and discussion with Dr. Sherine Gabriel, who is the executive vice president of ASU Health.

Hotez said the academic world could help the disinformation problem by more widely teaching science to students, providing science teachers with higher compensation, and at the university level by having different disciplines like medicine and politics dialoguing with one another, and by teaching students effective communication skills.

In a nation built on the greatness of research institutions and universities that created the Manhattan Project, Silicon Valley and NASA, Hotez said, scientists and academics are the true patriots of the U.S., not the people spreading false information about science yet claiming to be patriots.

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Here five reasons why Hotez says people worldwide should be worried about anti-science rhetoric:

Anti-science messaging is organized and preying on people for political gain, he says

Hotez says that criticism of evidence-based science is an actual movement, not just a "random drunk on the internet" and that information that discouraged people from getting the COVID-19 vaccine "was deliberate, it was well-financed and it was predatory and people pay for it with their lives," he said.

The movement, he said, began with a law that took effect in California in 2016, which mandates vaccinations for all private and public schoolchildren with the exception of kids who have a doctor-certified medical exemption. Exemptions for personal beliefs are not allowed in California like they are in Arizona.

Opposition to the California law, often labeled as parents' rights and medical freedom, spread into other states such as Texas and began attracting political donations. It became affiliated with far-right extremists, Hotez said. During COVID-19, the rhetoric among conservatives became "first they are going to vaccinate you and then they are going to take away your guns and your Bibles," Hotez said.

"As ridiculous as that sounds to us, people in my state of Texas and your state of Arizona accepted that, and then the pile-on came. The pile-on came from members of the House Freedom Caucus," Hotez said. "And then very importantly, was amplified every night on Fox News. ... If you went down that rabbit hole, then you chose not to take the vaccine."

Now, the anti-vaccine movement is writing revisionist history to say it was the COVID-19 vaccine and not the virus that killed people, he said.

"Historically, there's nothing really anti-science about the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln created the National Academy of Science. ... This is something that is kind of new and twisted," Hotez said.

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Hotez estimates false messaging caused 200,000 preventable US COVID-19 deaths

After May 2021, the COVID-19 vaccine became freely and widely available in the U.S. In Texas, almost as many Texans died of COVID-19 after May 2021 as before that demarcation, Hotez said. He compared Texas with Canada, which has a similar population size to Texas and had 51,000 COVID-19 deaths, while Texas had 100,000.

"After vaccines became widely available (in Canada), the deaths halted," Hotez said. "In Texas, they kept on rolling on. About 40,000 Texans needlessly died because they refused a COVID vaccine. ... In the United States, the number overall is about 200,000 needless deaths."

Hotez said the 200,000 deaths were an "extraordinary loss of life that was unnecessary." He also noted research showing counties that were politically more Republican had consistently lower vaccination rates than more heavily Democratic counties.

"When you look at people who refuse to take a COVID vaccine, other than Republican, the other big driver is low education," Hotez said. "These people were pure and simple victims, victims of this very predatory campaign. They were specifically targeted. ... It's so tragic to see that's what happened."

In an interview, Hotez said that he's worried about politicians' "lack of concern for human life, that somehow these individuals are expendable."

The anti-science movement has similarities to Stalin, he has found

The movement is not just targeting the science but the scientists, too, Hotez said.

"They are portraying us as public enemies. It's like what Stalin did in the communist regime in the 1930s. We are not throwing scientists into gulags yet, but that could be the next step," Hotez said. "Listen to the rhetoric of (Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis in Florida railing against elites, that is very much in line with Stalin. ... It's not only an attack on the scientists, it's an attack on the intelligentsia, and it goes very much in line with far-right populism."

When he was researching his book, Hotez said he found himself reading writings by Hannah Arendt, about the origins of totalitarianism.

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Measles is making a comeback

A recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says measles cases and deaths are on the rise worldwide. While some of that is a result of disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also because of a globalization of anti-vaccine activism, according to Hotez.

"Measles is often one of the first breakthrough infections you see when your vaccination rates start to decline," he said. "If your vaccine program isn't up to snuff, you'll start to see measles."

In Arizona, data shows just 29% of kindergarten classes in Maricopa County public schools during the 2021-2022 academic year had community immunity against measles, which would leave many children vulnerable in the event of an outbreak.

Arizona law says children attending school and child care must obtain certain vaccines, unless they are exempted by a doctor for medical reasons, or by a parent for personal or religious reasons.

Community or "herd" immunity generally is considered to be 95% or more people in a group who are fully vaccinated against measles, which means at least two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

"In the past, there would be this auto correction. Parents weren't vaccinating, there would be a measles epidemic, kids would go to the hospital or ICU and parents would get them vaccinated," Hotez said. "Now people are tying their political ideology to not getting vaccinated over this phony medical freedom propaganda and it's getting worse."

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Anti-science rhetoric appears to be getting worse

Anti-science messaging is not just in the U.S., it is now global, Hotez said.

And artificial intelligence is able to quickly generate anti-vaccine content tailored to specific groups, he said.

"To make it even more complicated, you've got foreign actors doing this," he said.

Reach health care reporter Stephanie Innes at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @stephanieinnes.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dr. Peter Hotez: Anti-science rhetoric is threatening lives worldwide