A Dangerous Escalation of the Science Wars
By Céline Gounder, Infectious Disease Physician and Epidemiologist
As a member of President Biden’s Covid-19 Advisory Board, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the science wars over vaccines have become increasingly divisive. Recently, I received an anonymous email from a far-right American website falsely claiming that I had killed my husband with Covid vaccines – a baseless narrative that has been circulating among vaccine skeptics.
The email foreshadowed news of a shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta. The gunman was reportedly fueled by Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories and blamed the vaccine for his depression, leaving both himself and a law enforcement officer dead.
This attack highlights the dangers of misinformation spread online, particularly when it comes to science and public health. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that public health decisions are not just about individual liberty, but also about collective action and shared values.
Covid vaccination has become tribal, with social media platforms amplifying partisan views over evidence-based information. Public officials have failed to explain the values and trade-offs behind their decisions, and instead, they’ve often treated science as the only source of truth.
This approach has left science vulnerable to being twisted for political ends. The Trump administration’s rhetoric has dehumanized CDC workers, while the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is pushing for changes that could undermine public health institutions.
The erosion of trust in scientific institutions is a threat not just to public health but also to democracy itself. It’s essential to recognize that science is a method for formulating and testing hypotheses, not a fixed set of facts. We must protect science from political or commercial capture and preserve the shared baseline that underpins public health policy.
Restoring this shared understanding of reality requires a commitment to civic duty, patriotism, and protecting institutions, people, and processes that make it possible. The time for nuanced discussion is over; we need a collective effort to safeguard both our individual and collective health.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/opinion/cdc-shooting-vaccine-misinformation.html