Mounting antiscience aggression in the United States

Peter J Hotez

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001369

Mounting antiscience aggression in the United States

PLoS Biol. 2021 Jul 28;19(7):e3001369. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001369. eCollection 2021 Jul.

Author

Peter J Hotez^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

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.

Abstract

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.

MeSH terms

Aggression*
Anti-Vaccination Movement / statistics & numerical data
Attitude to Health
COVID-19 / epidemiology
COVID-19 / prevention & control*
COVID-19 / virology
Humans
Pandemics / prevention & control
Politics
Research Personnel / statistics & numerical data*
SARS-CoV-2 / isolation & purification*
SARS-CoV-2 / physiology
Science / statistics & numerical data*
Science / trends
Social Media / statistics & numerical data
United States / epidemiology

Grants and funding

The author received no specific funding for this work.