In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the CDC’s advisory committee. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine ideology has put him at odds with the scientific community – including Dr. Peter J. Hotez, a Texas-based vaccine researcher.
Hotez is professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and played a key role in developing the Covid-19 vaccine.
He talked with Think host Krys Boyd about how anti-science factions have hijacked the conversations about health and his many failed attempts to change Kennedy’s mind about vaccines. His book, written with Michael E. Mann, is "Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World."
Below are excerpts from the interview. To hear the complete conversation, listen to Think Wednesday at noon or download the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Krys Boyd I first have to ask why so many of us fall under the sway of anti-science ideas. Do Americans not share a broad understanding of how science works and that it's a net source of good because we don't get it? Or are we being deliberately misled?
Dr. Peter J. Hotez I think it's the latter. This is one of the things that among the major themes of the book is that it's not misinformation or “the infodemic,” as we sometimes say it, meaning it's not just random junk out there on the internet. It's organized. It's deliberate. It is psychologically very sophisticated in a nefarious way. It’s got political underpinnings. So it's politically motivated, and it's financially motivated. People are making money off of anti-science.
And the reason we have to care, the other kind of 30,000 foot aerial view statement about the book is: it's killing Americans now. Anti-sciences has become a lethal force in the United States. And if you look at what the two big existential threats are to humankind right now, two of them are, two of the biggest ones, are pandemic threats. ... and then the climate crisis and the warming temperatures, and we can talk about that. But now, the other big picture statement from the book is there's a third leg to that tripod. It's not only the pandemics and not only climate crisis, but the massive onslaught of disinformation that is now blocking our ability to respond to those two things. So this is why we need to care. It's become a killing force, and it's now in itself a threat to humankind.
Boyd I would say the tone of the book is firm and thorough, but very calm. You're not making this personal, but it has been personal on the other side, right? You and your co-author both have faced threats to your physical safety for the work you do.
Hotez Yeah, physical safety and it's for both of us, you know, a huge smear campaign against us. Well, this is what part of the anti-science movement is all about. It's not only trying to discredit the science, whether it's climate science or pandemic science or virology, but vaccines. But also, for their business model to work, they have to denigrate the scientists themselves and publicly try to portray us as you know public enemies or even cartoon villains -- and it launches waves of death threats online you know either on social media or on e-mail, in-person stalkings at lectures that that we give at various venues usually typically universities, or in my case, academic health centers. And even people coming to our homes to threaten us, sending swastikas in the mail. I mean, it's, so it has gotten very dark and scary, but all the more reason why we need to ultimately defeat it.
Boyd One major force at work in trying to dismantle the broad acceptance of vaccines in this country is this disproven but still pervasive belief that there's a relationship between vaccines and autism. This one is personal to you as a scientist but also as a parent.
Hotez Yeah, this is how I got involved with the whole going up against anti-science forces. And it wasn't what I set out to do. You know, my life was devoted to making low-cost vaccines for global health. … The part I didn't count on with Anne was having four adult kids, including Rachel, who has autism and intellectual disabilities. … That then put me in this interesting position, because a number of years ago I got asked by the National Institutes of Health to have long discussions with Mr. Kennedy and explain to him why vaccines don't cause autism.
Boyd Sec. Kennedy has a very important job these days, but he is not a physician, not a scientist. What did you learn in those conversations with him about how he had arrived at his views that vaccines were uniquely dangerous to human health?
Hotez Yeah, and by the way, you don't have to be a scientist or a physician to be Health and Human Services Secretaries. In fact, our past Health and Human Services secretaries were not. But they had humility, and they had an interest in science and were passionate about getting it right for science. Not so Mr. Kennedy, you know. He holds these very fixed beliefs, and he looks for things that confirm his bias. And he does not have an interest in the science. … When I would have those discussions with Mr. Kennedy, and I still have them today now in the global square and public square, is lack of plausibility, because we know there are at least 100 autism genes -- all involved in early fetal brain development. And that's the basis of autism. … It doesn't mean that there's no environmental effects, but if there are environmental effects they’re environmental effects that are occurring early on in pregnancy during early fetal brain development.
Let me give you an example. So, if you're pregnant and not aware of it and taking an anti-seizure medication called the Depakote, the other name for it is valproic acid, it will greatly increase the likelihood your child will be born with an autism phenotype, because it's interacting with autism genes in early fetal brain development. And for Mr. Kennedy, I identified about half a dozen chemical exposures like that in early pregnancy. And I remember having those conversations with him. I said, “Bobby,” Back then I was calling him Bobby. “Bobby, you should be all over this, right? You're an environmental attorney. This is your moment, man. Run with it and help us identify other environmental exposures. But it's nothing to do with vaccines, because autism -- the processes are all underway in pregnancy and then continue to evolve after birth, but it's implausible. It's not plausible for it to be related to vaccines.” And he couldn't care less about the science.
And then he comes out a few weeks ago -- one of the reasons I get so exercised about this is he has the audacity to come out a week ago, and, you know, claim that he alone is the defender of looking at environmental causes of autism. That the scientific community is saying it's purely a matter of shifting diagnostic criteria. Well, I think shifting and broadening diagnostic criteria is a huge component of it. But it was Mr. Kennedy who had no interest in looking at the environmental exposures, and I still don't think he has much interest and just comes up with a lot of crazy or disproven discredited stuff.