dr Peter Hotez

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merri ok

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LI --> 10 25 ~ pielke

“Petrostates, polluters, politicians”, or “plutocrats, pros, propagandists” and sometimes also “the press”; there is no lack of aliterations when it comes to Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez new book “Science Under Siege: How To Fight The Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World”.

The dynamic duo of academic heavy hitters are no strangers to sparring with many of the forces of anti-science aggression they outline in their book.

:{:{Michael Mann, a destinguished climate scientist most famous for introducing the now iconic Hockey-stick graph into public climate awareness learned first what it meant to become a target in the information age. Ever since hackers stole and misrepresented scientists’ — including Mann´s — emails to cast doubt on climate research right before the 2009 global climate summit in Copenhagen to sabotage international collaboration, Michael Mann has found himself at the center of the public storm over truth in science.}:

Though multiple independent investigations cleared him and his colleagues of any wrongdoing, the “Climategate” smear campaign cast him as an early villain in what we know understand to be the desired manipulative mirrorworld created by coordinated disinformation networks that Science Under Siege describes. Rather than retreating into the safety of academia, Mann turned outward, becoming one of the most visible defenders of climate science and of scientists’ right to speak without fear.}:

Peter Hotez, a renowned vaccine scientists, has fought a parallel battle on another front: public health. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccine scientist and pediatrician found himself vilified by anti-vaccine activists — most notably, now HHS secretary RFK Jr cast him as the “OG villain” for writing his deeply personal book about how vaccines did not cause the autism of his daughter, but that autism is a complex genetic disease.

Like Mann, Hotez experienced firsthand the personal cost of promoting evidence-based medicine and confronting misinformation — harassment, threats, and the relentless distortion of his work, which just escalated beyond recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Hotez, too, refused to withdraw. His advocacy for vaccines and global health equity, and his insistence that science must serve humanity rather than ideology, echo throughout this book.

*“the most profound impression lingering is the uncharacteristically sharp and plain-speaking tone and tenor the two bring into its pages”

Despite the depths of consideration for the human condition - to preserve human health and a livable planet - and appeals to the better angles of humanity shining throughout the book, the most profound impression lingering is the uncharacteristically sharp and plain-speaking tone and tenor the two bring into its pages.

With scathing commentary and righteous fury, the authors rejected to beat around the bush or the all-too-common academic retreat to euphemisms, rather opting for refreshing — even scorched-earth — clarity of where they stand and who their opponents are. One can not help escape the conclusion that the book is drawing a line in the sand with every chapter; a rebuke to the silent and accomodating institutions that rather surrender academic independence than put up a fight.

There is no appeasement when the fight is existential, the authors remind us; often with some heavy leaning into fictional metaphors, such as The Lord of the Rings:

“The battle for Middle Earth wasn´t won by appeasing the dark lord and his forces. It was won by defeating them”

From fossil fuel magnates and billionaire tech pros to the US congress and a captured SCOTUS, or autocratic petrostates and their agents, to home-grown propagandists and media makers, the authors do not shy away from implicating key players and their malevolent activities that pose a threat to our health, our planet, and more and more, our democracy and freedom.

What malevolant activities? The anti-science ecosystem has long grown beyond shadowy think tanks and closed-door fundraisers to lobby politicians; state-actor sabotage, plutocrat campaigns and dark-money sponsorship has since extended to prop up the “pros” and “propagandists” on social media (or “anti-social media and the bots of war”, one subtitle reads); empowering and amplifying their use of emotional myths and conspiracy theories to dominate online discourse, sway bystanders, and with it indirectly how the “press” covers these events.

“For propagandists, a key feature of the antiscience playbook is its reliance on conspiracy theories and conspiracy-filled rhetoric”

Hotez and Mann do a fantastic job in exposing pay-for-play connections, dirty relationships and how they led to inauthentic outcomes in supposedly democratic real-world events. Much of the book is concerned with the important task of correcting the record on some of the misleading highlights of the last years; which for many people not in the weeds of it, might be as surprising as devastating to learn. From COVID-19 lab leak conspiracies to climate doomism fostered by the mainstream press, from New York Times to Washington Post to the Wall Street Journal and Fox News and most mainstream outlets inbetween, the seasoned authors hold a special grudge to previous bastions of evidence-based reporting and good-willed truth-seeking institutions that seem to be no more, or at least, strongly diminished when it comes to uphold science. Worse, some like the New York Times actively have become powerful allies of aggressors, justifying the rightwing assault on science and scientists:

With both COVID and climate, the mainstream media have helped keep alive a pernicious but misguided narrative that - to the extent there is distrust of the science by some members of the public - it is the scientists´ fault.

The book describes the “collapse” of the fourth estate and the rise of “client journalism” that has been felt society-wide, and unfortunately, scientists have lost a critical ally in the press when expertise gets discarded or subverted in favor of media content serving vested interests. Even worse, our recent shift into a new dark age of myth, manipulation and magical thinking has made scientists canaries in the coalmine of democracy, and when reading this book, one is left with the sinking feeling that the carbon monoxide has already filled the chamber.

“Our list of allies is growing thin”

The authors report, another reference to The Lord of the Rings. And yet, rather than concede, the authors end the book with broad strokes outlining how the war can still be won, offering “battle plan” and urgency for all of us who want to defend science, democracy and an evidence-based worldview.

The “antiscience superstorm packs a one-two-three punch, and each of the threats must be addressed in concert with the other”, they caution, but for all of them, they advise a 3-pronged strategy for scientists. Communicating constructively because the “best defense is indeed a good offense”; proactively addressing the “triple threat” of invisible scientists, missing science journalism and performative press neutrality head-on. Protecting scientists is another key ingredient, institutionally and legally, that become targets of anti-science assault. And lastly, destroying the disinformation machine; which of course is a challenge that extends far beyond science. On that part, “punishing the pros, propagandists and the press”, “pressuring the plutocrats” and “mending the media”, with the force of the law, new regulations, and ultimately, our pocketbooks and democratic organizing might not surprise the avid reader and democratic citizen who likely has asked themselves the same question at least since the 2024 US election.

“We have to be the change we want to see in the world“

the authors credibly advise, given their own personal trajectories and accomplishments, before ending with another The Lord of the Rings rallying cry that it is worth fighting for what is good in the world, for us, our children and future generations.

Even in dark times, my suspicion is that the furious and clear-eyed moral argument advanced by “Science under siege” will age as well as the science it defends — not because the good guys always win, but because truth and integrity never go out of style.

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Thanks for reading Protagonist Science! This book review is public so feel free to share it.

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Science Under Siege: A Conversation With Dr. Peter Hotez & Dr. Michael Mann

Find tickets & information for Science Under Siege: A Conversation With Dr. Peter Hotez & Dr. Michael Mann. happening at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, Houston, TX on Tue, 09 Sep, 2025 at 12:00 pm. Register or Buy Tickets, Price information.

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Three years ago in January 2020, reports of a then-new disease in Wuhan, China were becoming increasingly disturbing. That disease came to be called COVID-19 and has since killed more than 6.7 million people worldwide,according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Over one million of the fatalities have occurred in the United States.

In 2023, COVID-19 remains highly contagious but isn’t killing nearly as many people as it was in 2020 and 2021. Millions of people around the world have been vaccinated, and at this point, most COVID-19 infections aren’t fatal and aren’t serious enough to require hospitalization.

But in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on January 9, Dr. Peter J. Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston notes that COVID-19 is “still killing hundreds of Americans every day.” And he fears that as House speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California won’t give this problem the serious attention that it deserves.

“McCarthy and his fellow Republicans have a disturbing set of plans for so-called oversight of the coronavirus that could divert precious resources from what must be our main goal in the coming years: preventing the next pandemic,” explains Hotez, who is known for his expertise in virology. “It’s still early, and the shape of GOP intentions — and their ability to enact them — are still very much coming into focus. But it’s clear that after years of far-right, anti-science resistance to vaccines or basic pandemic safety, the Republicans plan to satiate their base’s lingering anti-government rage. This could mean fresh epidemiological disaster — and not in 20 or 30 years, but within this decade.”

Hotez fears that McCarthy, as House speaker, will cater to unscientific members of his party.

“Just prior to the new year,” Hotez observes, “Republican members on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform also made a series of misleading or downright outlandish claims. Among them: that they had evidence that COVID-19 likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, that experimental and risky coronavirus research was funded by the NIH, and that said information may have been covered up by Dr. Anthony Fauci. The problem is these views represent an alternative reality to the findings from the mainstream community of biomedical scientists, especially the virologists.”

The Baylor College researcher continues, “Yes, it’s true that the so-called lab leak theory is not confined to the total fringe, and that well-credentialed experts — including Fauci — remain open to it. But three papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA last year tell a very different story for COVID-19 origins…. No findings can entirely rule out the possibility of lab leak, and I have long argued it is theoretically plausible. But the extensive studies and information collected even in the past year overwhelmingly point to animal origins of COVID-19.”

Hotez warns that in the future, new coronaviruses could lead to deadly pandemics.

“We have now had three serious epidemics or pandemics from human coronavirus infections in this 21st Century — first SARS, then MERS, and now, COVID-19,” Hotez notes. “This is a reason my research group began making coronavirus vaccines a decade ago. Mother Nature is not being obscure or coy with us. She has let us know the plan: Every seven to nine years, the world will experience a serious, potentially worldwide pandemic from coronaviruses that likely first arise from bats before they jump to humans.”

The severity of COVID-19 infections varies from person to person. Some people test positive for COVID-19 but never have any symptoms; other infections could resemble anything from a minor cold to a bad case of the flu.

Millions of people who are getting sick with COVID-19 will feel bad for a week or two but go on to make a full recovery; those who have the misfortune of getting “long COVID,” however, can suffer debilitating symptoms that drag on for months.

According to a new study authored by University of Washington scientists Sarah Wulf Hanson and Theo Vos and published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, “even mild COVID-19” infections can have “long-lasting effects on people’s health.”

“Long COVID is defined as the continuation or development of symptoms three months after the initial infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” Hanson and Vos explain. “These symptoms last for at least two months after onset with no other explanation. We found that a staggering 90 percent of people living with long COVID initially experienced only mild illness with COVID-19. After developing long COVID, however, the typical person experienced symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive problems such as brain fog — or a combination of these — that affected daily functioning. These symptoms had an impact on health as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury. Our study also found that women have twice the risk of men and four times the risk of children for developing long COVID.”

Hanson and Vos found that “nearly one out of every seven” people suffering long COVID “were still experiencing these symptoms a year later.”

“We found that patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 had a greater risk of developing long COVID — and of having longer-lasting symptoms — compared with people who had not been hospitalized,” Hanson and Vos report. “However, because the vast majority of COVID-19 cases do not require hospitalization, many more cases of long COVID have arisen from these milder cases despite their lower risk.”

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On Sunday, The Washington Post Editorial Board published a brief piece blasting Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for waging a political war against mRNA COVID-19 vaccines despite their overwhelming success at saving lives as well as their proven track record for safety.

"DeSantis last week demanded a grand jury investigate 'criminal or wrongful activity in Florida' involving the 'development, promotion and distribution' of coronavirus vaccines. As public opinion shows vaccine hesitancy is growing, Mr. DeSantis’s move is not only absurd but also dangerous," the Board wrote.

"Vaccines work. A mathematical model, based on country-level data, found they directlysaved some 15.5 million lives worldwide in the first year they were available, and millions more indirectly," the editors said, adding that "the speed with which mRNA vaccines reached people was a spectacular scientific achievement, given the history of vaccine development. Three decades of research has yet to produce a viable vaccine to prevent or treat HIV/AIDS."

And while there have been some unanticipated setbacks – like the need for periodic boosters to offset waning immunity – the Board stressed that overall, the inoculations have been a net positive for the population that chose to get the jabs.

"Vaccines remain a bulwark against severe illness, hospitalization and death," the paper's leaders said. "Adults who received the latest booster shots cut their risk of having to visit an emergency room or being hospitalized by 50 percent or more, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Dec. 16."

The editors also tore into DeSantis for instigating public skepticism about vaccines – and science in general – as part of his presumed strategy to challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination:

He has taken it a step further with a petition to the Florida Supreme Court seeking empanelment of a statewide grand jury — which in Florida can carry out broader investigations of government — on vaccines. In a crude appeal to the anti-vaccine movement, Mr. DeSantis’s petition darkly implies that public reassurances of vaccine efficacy were driven by 'financial gain.'

The Board further noted that this kind of deceptive messaging has had a devasting impact:

Professor Peter Hotez, who co-led development of a vaccine for low- and middle-income countries at the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has pointed out that some200,000 Americans 'needlessly lost their lives in the last half of 2021 and into early 2022 because they refused a coronavirus vaccine during our terrible delta wave.'

The Board's conclusion was thusly unambiguous.

"A scientific achievement so overwhelmingly beneficial to humanity ought not be forsaken in the interest of scoring political points," it stated in its closing remarks. "The truth is as simple as this: Vaccines save lives."

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