Speaker: Anti-science surfaces as a threat to nephrology, all health care specialties
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ORLANDO — As COVID-19 continues, drivers of current and potential pandemics are poverty, war, political instability, urbanization, deforestation, climate change and now anti-science, a presenter at ASN Kidney Week said.
In the keynote presentation, Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, explored the ways anti-science activism impacts health care.
For the first time, the WHO reported a decline in vaccinations around the globe in 2021, and Hotez said additional deaths occurred in the United States because many Americans refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
Anti-science activism is taking on health care as a whole, Hotez said. He said medical professionals are finding themselves in a position where they must acknowledge politics for the first time.
“How do we uncouple [conservatism] from the anti-science? Because it’s killing more Americans than gun violence, global terrorism, nuclear proliferation [and] cyber-attacks and yet, we don’t frame it as such,” he said.
In a panel discussion following the keynote presentation, Hotez said communication with the public is an obstacle to combating anti-science. Therefore, it can also be part of the solution. Federal officials in the United States tend to communicate to the public in language that is on a fourth- or sixth-grade level and, according to Hotez, this can lead to mistrust.
Further, Hotez said nephrologists and health care professionals are often silent when faced with anti-science activism to protect the reputation of their institutions.
“We don't train physicians and scientists to talk to people at a macro level,” Hotez said. “I had to learn it through trial and error, more error than trial, and I'm still learning. But there is a way to do it, and I think if we start offering those public engagement options in our medical school training and fellowship training, then I think we can start doing that.”
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Hotez PJ. Preventing the next pandemic. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week; Nov. 3-6, 2022; Orlando (hybrid meeting).
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