Receiving daily emails from distressed vaccinated individuals who cannot convince their loved ones to get the COVID19 vaccine. Most often older parents of an adult, sometimes pregnant daughter, or adolescent. The antiscience disinformation empire has caused a national tragedy
Tragically the empire was not established overnight, it built up and evolved over many years. It was enabled in part by USG + DHHS (going back several administrations) refusal to sound the alarm and launch a counteroffensive. I spent a part of my career saying this day would come
Now at least there is some acknowledgment that there’s a problem, but even now few are willing to get out there and identify the 3 heads of this highly evolved and evil antiscience empire, that’s what I’ve done thedailybeast.com/biden-battles-…
And now the antiscience empire is embarking on a new phase: targeting individual American scientists. Hoping that article comes online this week
In the meantime here is my 2017 @nytimes article, more than 4 years ago, sounding the alarm…for which I got a gentle rebuke from some in US Govt, who said we shouldn’t call attention to this, that their approach was adequate. It wasn’t and I knew it

nytimes.com/2017/02/08/opi…
But it’s not too late, we can and must create an interagency action between Departments HHS, Homeland Security, Commerce, Justice, and State. The point is now the antiscience empire has strength size and reach going way beyond the health sector. We need a different kind of advice
We must learn from those who have led the establishment of infrastructure to combat global terrorism, cyberattacks, nuclear proliferation. The reality is antiscience is now killing more Americans than all those other things combined

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More from @PeterHotez

26 Jul
Many thanks ⁦@morningmika⁩ ⁦@JoeNBC⁩ ⁦@Morning_Joe⁩ for hosting me this morning on an unfolding dire situation here in the South due to the delta variant and low vaccination rates. The low vaccination rates in Southern states are not accidental…
The widespread refusal to get COVID19 vaccines follows months and months of antiscience aggression from the far right, including elected members of the US Congress, CPAC, conservative news outlets, and amplified on social media including Facebook
I’m quite concerned about the school year starting in the South in a few weeks: Only 15-18% adolescents vaccinated, 30-40% young adults, delta accelerating, no vaccine mandates, no mask mandates, I’m quite worried
Read 5 tweets
23 Jul
Many thanks ⁦@AlisynCamerota⁩ for hosting me @CNN discussing the return of COVID19 in the South the defiance and refusal of vaccines remains strong even among survivors and those at greatest risk. Their rhetoric is copy pasted from CPAC and conservative news outlets Image
On that basis we can say that far right elements, including elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets brought Covid back to the South. A self inflicted wound of monumental proportions
Here in the Southern US we have <16-20% adolescents vaccinated, maybe only a little better among young adults, few if any mask mandates (our only backstop) and now delta is the overwhelming variant. What about this situation makes people think this is going to go well?
Read 4 tweets
23 Jul
1/4 I see #FoxNewsKills trending? But as I write in @PLOSBiology it's that ANTI-SCIENCE KILLS. Anti-science = major reason why >600,000 Americans lost their lives from COVID-19 due to defiance of masks, social distancing and now vaccines. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar…
2/4 Anti-science killed more Americans in 2020-21 than terrorism, cyberattacks, nuke proliferation combined. Our US Govt builds in infrastructre to combat those things but not anti-science. For >20 yrs I've fought a lonely struggle to get US Govt to take anti-science seriously
3/4 We can defeat anti-science but it requires US Govt to recognize it's importance and not resort to simple throw away statements like blaming Facebook. Anti-science has a sophisticated infrastructure and in the case of bio-sciences the three greatest offenders currently are...
Read 5 tweets
22 Jul
Many thanks Jim ⁦@Acosta⁩ for hosting me with my friend colleague ⁦@ashishkjha⁩ Covid now accelerating in Southern states where vaccine refusal and defiance is high due to antiscience aggression from the political far right, including some members US Congress
This is a self inflicted wound for the nation. The tragic reality is that if not for the antivaccine antiscience aggression from a group of US Congressional members and far right cable networks we could have possibly fended off delta. We would still need to vaccinate the world
When the history of COVID19 in America is written we’ll have to face the reality that far right extremism helped lead the return of COVID19 in the Summer of 2021
Read 4 tweets
21 Jul
NEW THREAD on questions I’m asking (myself) for potential 3rd mRNA immunization in eligible adults/adolescents as a means to prevent pediatric infections:
Given preliminary evidence of 1,000X higher viral loads and shedding in those infected with delta virological.org/t/viral-infect…
If that holds up, presumably a reason for high community spread and higher Ro, maybe as high as 6

Question 1: Are we seeing a rise in pediatric cases and hospitalizations as a result?
Question 2: Given this would require likely at least 85% vaccine coverage to slow transmission and it looks like we won’t achieve that: should we consider an alternative way to slow transmission to the unvaccinated, esp children?
Read 5 tweets
21 Jul
I’m concerned about the accelerating number of children with COVID19 in pediatric intensive care units PICUs in areas where vaccinations are low and delta is accelerating. katv.com/news/local/ark…
As I said on @OutFrontCNN tonight not sure that delta specifically targets kids, it’s just that delta is sweeping up kids as it infects all unvaccinated populations
Read 4 tweets

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