Dr. Peter Hotez discusses how the antivaccine movement became a dangerous political campaign promoted by elected officials and amplified by news media, causing thousands of American deaths.
Shortlisted for the Non-Obvious Book Awards by the Non-Obvious Company
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, one renowned scientist, in his famous bowtie, appeared daily on major news networks such as MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, and others. Dr. Peter J. Hotez often went without sleep, working around the clock to develop a nonprofit COVID-19 vaccine and to keep the public informed. During that time, he was one of the most trusted voices on the pandemic and was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his selfless work. He also became one of the main targets of anti-science rhetoric that gained traction through conservative news media.
In this eyewitness story of how the anti-vaccine movement grew into a dangerous and prominent anti-science element in American politics, Hotez describes the devastating impacts it has had on Americans' health and lives. As a scientist who has endured antagonism from anti-vaxxers and been at the forefront of both essential scientific discovery and advocacy, Hotez is uniquely qualified to tell this story. By weaving his personal experiences together with information on how the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world, Hotez opens readers' eyes to the dangers of anti-science. He explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force: in the first years of the pandemic, more than 200,000 unvaccinated Americans needlessly died despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines. Even as he paints a picture of the world under a shadow of aggressive ignorance, Hotez demonstrates his innate optimism, offering solutions for how to combat science denial and save lives in the process.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1. An Army of Patriots Turns against the Scientists
Chapter 2. Health Freedom Propaganda in America
Chapter 3. Red COVID
Chapter 4. An Anti-science Political Ecosystem
Chapter 5. A Tough Time to Be a Scientist
Chapter 6. The Authoritarian Playbook
Chapter 7. The Hardest Science Communication Ever
Chapter 8. Southern Poverty Law Center for Scientists
Literature Cited
Index
About the Author :
Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD (HOUSTON, TX), is a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also the codirector of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development. He is the author of Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science and Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad.
Review :
The author's short, passionate polemic, dense with studies and charts, provides overwhelming evidence that scientific research benefits humanity and that vaccines are lifesavers. Supremely well-informed.
—Kirkus Reviews
Virologist and vaccine expert Peter Hotez has provided the definitive work on this era....[His] warning about the broader implications of COVID denial must be heeded.
—Arthur Caplan, Science
Harrowing and deeply alarming. [Hotez's] analysis of the modern US anti-vaccine movement and its entanglement with the authoritarian right is astute.
—New Scientist
[A] powerful eyewitness account of anti-scientific activities in the USA.
—Naomi Oreskes, The Lancet
[Hotez] demonstrates that 'anti-science aggression' is one of many threats humanity and our collective civilisation is facing.
—The Lancet Infectious Diseases
A professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor and a courageously outspoken advocate for public health, Hotez documents how agitators on the extreme right have graduated from trying to sow mistrust in science to targeting individual scientists such as himself. The heart of his book is a call for government agencies and professional organizations to wage an aggressive battle against anti-vaccination and anti-science propaganda.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times
[Dr. Hotez is] better known as a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize nominee for helping to develop two COVID-19 vaccines that were administered more than 100 million times in India and Indonesia. Last year, he wrote a new book, The Deadly Rise of Anti-science: A Scientist's Warning. For his pains, he has been villainized by the antivaccine community online and labeled by antivaxxer presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the OG, or Original Gangster.
—TIME (TIME100 Health 2024)
Hotez paints a bleak picture of public science denial during the pandemic, embedded in historic context....[He] makes the case that the denial of scientific knowledge is not isolated, random, or benign. Rather, it is an organized and dangerous movement. Along with offering context for anti-science movements, he humanizes the scientists working to help us.
—Health Affairs
Hotez is well-positioned to raise alarms about anti-science. He is a physician scientist who, for both personal and professional reasons, was publicly defending vaccines long before COVID-19. . .The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science foretells a worrisome future for vaccines in America.
—Philip Eil, The Nation
Dr. Peter Hotez sheds light on the pervasive anti-vaccine lobby that has gained significant traction....Reversing the damage caused by anti-vaccine movements requires addressing the underlying psychological and political factors that fuel this skepticism.
—Express Healthcare Management
We need an infrastructure to assist scientists in their desperately needed ancillary role as science communicators. Peter Hotez...offers direction to achieving these new goals. We hope that scientific institutions will take heed and follow.
—Genetic Literacy Project
Hotez, who has extensive experience with coronaviruses, describes anti-science efforts regarding vaccinations in general, vaccination of children, and COVID-19 vaccinations in particular. It is time for scientists and the public to resist these attacks....Recommended.
—Choice
In this era when truth, evidence and science are, to put it bluntly, under attack, it is important that we share lessons and provide support in our health services and policy research community....[Dr. Hotez] advocates for organized supports from scientific organizations and associations to equip and protect scientists who are working to defend science.
—Maggie Keresteci, CAHSPR
Because government health agencies have been ineffective in opposing hateHotez argues that more is needed to protect biomedical scientists.
—APS Forum on Physics & Society
Chronicles much of the anti-vaccination movement, the promotion of misinformation, and the role of politics in the spread of anti-science, all the while detailing the deliberate attacks and aggressions on scientists. Though it establishes anti-science's historical roots in authoritarianism, the focus of this book is on the politics and climate of the current state of science.
—Eugene N. Anderson, PhD (University of California, Riverside), © Doody's Review Service, 2024
A short, frightening analysis of the rise of anti-science sentiment in the United States and throughout the world....Hotez is particularly well-suited to provide such analysis and warning.
—Reformed Journal
