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.
Description
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
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), (c) Doody's Review Service, 2024