RFK Stacks Vaccine Panel: Judge Smacks Him Down

Judge Brian E. Murphy: ORDER entered. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER on Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary relief is GRANTED in part.(i) The Court STAYS the January 2026 Memo revising the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 705. (ii) The Court STAYS the appointments of the thirteen ACIP members appointed on June 11, 2025, September 11, 2025, and January 13, 2026. (iii) The Court further STAYS all votes taken by the now-stayed ACIP.(MBM) (Entered: 03/16/2026)

Federal District Judge Brian Murphy:

“Science,” like law, “is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge.”  Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark 29 (1997).  History is littered with once-universal truths that have since come under scrutiny.  Nevertheless, science is still “the best we have.”  Id.1   

“Procedure is to law what scientific method is to science.”  In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 21 (1967) (cleaned up).  Although sometimes seemingly tedious, “the procedural rules which have been fashioned from the generality of due process are our best instruments for the distillation and evaluation of essential facts from the conflicting welter of data that life and our adversary methods present.”  Id. 

For our public health, Congress and the Executive have built—over decades—an apparatus that marries the rigors of science with the execution and force of the United States government. One extraordinary product of that apparatus has been the eradication and reduction of certain communicable diseases through the development and use of vaccines.  In the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), “[v]accines are one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health.”2  Since the rise of vaccine development and usage in the early- to mid-1900s, “[t]he United States of America [has been] one of the pioneering nations to conceptualize and implement a robust immunization system that helped the nation tackle major epidemics.”3 

Since its founding in 1964, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (“ACIP”) has aided this endeavor by providing expert guidance on the clinical use of vaccines.4  The Department of Health and Humans Services (“HHS”), which indirectly oversees ACIP, formalized ACIP’s non-partisan, science-backed nature through ACIP’s governance documents.5  And Congress has, in turn, recognized the importance and value of having such independent experts involved in setting our national public health agenda by cementing ACIP’s role in the CDC’s issuance of immunization schedules, which—among other things—determines which vaccines are available to patients through insurers and government healthcare programs.6  This is all to say that there is a method to how these decisions historically have been made—a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements. 

Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.  First, the Government bypassed ACIP to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.  Second, the Government removed all duly appointed members of ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades. Again, this procedural failure highlights the very reasons why procedures exist and raises a substantial likelihood that the newly appointed ACIP fails to comport with governing law. 

Today, faced with Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary relief, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the reconstitution of ACIP and the January 2026 changes to the childhood immunization schedule violate the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”).  For the reasons stated below, the Court will grant Plaintiffs’ motion in part.  

RFK v. Pasteur

 Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.The greatest spreader of vaccine misinformation is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sara Ashley O’Brien at WSJ:

Why do people get sick? Ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s highest-ranking public-health official, and he may chalk it up to their terrain.

For centuries, doctors and scientists have agreed that germs are the underlying cause of infectious diseases. Someone coughs on you, you get a cold. Drink raw milk, and you might end up with E. coli or listeria. This widely accepted truth is the basis of pasteurization, vaccines and antibiotics.


But Kennedy has long embraced ideas rooted in theories that run counter to germ theory and help explain his deep mistrust of vaccines and his efforts to remake the U.S. public-health system. Those efforts came to a head last week as the Trump administration fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top officials quit their jobs in the midst of disagreements with Kennedy vaccine policy. On Thursday, Kennedy testified before a heated Senate panel about the administration’s health agenda and the recent staffing shake-ups.

“Secretary Kennedy is committed to building the healthiest generation in American history,” said Andrew G. Nixon, director of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services in a statement. “He is working to end the chronic disease epidemic and restoring trust in public health through transparency, gold-standard science, and evidence-based medicine.”

As chemist Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease was gaining traction in the 1800s, his rival Antoine Béchamp raised an alternative explanation: Disease, he said, was caused by the state of the body, which he referred to as the “terrain.” In his view, a strong inner environment, bolstered by nutritional food and a healthy lifestyle, could fend off illness.

Most doctors and scientists rejected Béchamp’s view, and the science of germ theory, bolstered by a German doctor named Robert Koch who identified bacteria that caused specific diseases like anthrax and tuberculosis, became a foundational piece of modern public health. Today scientists recognize that even healthy people can get sick when a virus infects them. But Béchamp retained a fringe following, one that has spread in the internet era. Kennedy’s critiques of germ theory reflect the persistent support of that sentiment.

Commuinicating Health Information

Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation -- especially about COVID and vaccines.

Liz Essley Whyte at WSJ:

Health authorities who beat the pandemic worry about losing more trust from the people they worked to save. Doctors, scientists and public-health officials are asking themselves how they can win it back. Among their postelection revelations: Don’t underestimate or talk down to those without a medical degree.
...

“We weren’t really considering the consequences in communities that were not New York City,” the places where the virus wasn’t hitting as hard, former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said at an event last year.

Authorities focused on ways to stop the disease and failed to consider “this actually, totally disrupts peoples’ lives, ruins the economy and has many kids kept out of school,” Collins said. The U.S. overall took the right approach, he said, but overlooking long-term consequences was “really unfortunate. That’s another mistake we made.”

Public-health officials wonder if they have sufficient clout for the next national emergency. “Science is losing its place as a source of truth,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s becoming just another voice in the room.”

...

To counter such views, Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, shared information on the importance of vaccines and face masks. She dismissed unsupported claims as misinformation and described some of their purveyors as grifters.

Looking back, Rivera said her sometimes scolding messages weren’t helpful. “Everybody has been tempted by the slam dunk,” she said. “It’s not an effective way to communicate science. It’s just not.” She and others say they are dialing back the use of the word misinformation, saying it makes people feel they are being called liars or dumb.

Some Food and Drug Administration staffers have already stopped saying that vaccines are safe and effective, instead advising that the benefits outweigh the risks, a person familiar with the matter said. The change is intended to make clear that all medical interventions have risks, the person said, and to spike the argument that rare side effects mean vaccines aren’t safe.

Virologist Dr. Greg Poland said he advises scientists to communicate with humility and empathy, to speak as a compassionate physician would with a patient. “We’re not dogmatic. We’re not about forcing people,” he said. “We’re about imparting information.”

To build trust in vaccines, Poland, who is also a Presbyterian minister, speaks to conservative churches and civic groups. He tells them he will be truthful and transparent and then explains how vaccines work and how scientists arrive at a consensus.

Poland said he stays until he has answered every last question.

Polarization and Trust in Science

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.

Alec Tyson and Brian Kennedy at Pew:

Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (88%) express a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. The share of Democrats with at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists is similar to levels seen prior to the pandemic.

However, the share of Democrats who express a great deal of confidence in scientists stands at 40%, significantly below the peak in strong trust seen during the pandemic’s first year. In April 2020, 52% of Democrats expressed a great deal of confidence in scientists, and in November 2020, that share reached 55%.

Republicans’ views follow a different pattern. Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican leaners say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interest. About a third (34%) express distrust, saying they have not too much or no confidence at all in scientists. In April 2020, an 85% majority of Republicans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists, compared with just 14% who had little or no confidence.

Raw Milk

Many posts have discussed partisan polarization.

After a long effort, an Iowa legislator won approval of a bill to legalize the sale of raw milk. Marc Novicoff at Politico:

What changed since 2008 is a vivid example of a larger upheaval in American politics. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still say raw milk is dangerous and the state dairy lobby sent lobbyists to the Iowa Capitol to defeat Schultz’s bill. But Iowa has flipped — it’s a Republican state now, from the presidential vote to the governor’s office to the near-supermajority Legislature — and that flip has occurred alongside even larger shifts in national politics, spurred on by the rise of Donald Trump. With Trump has come a new GOP electorate, one more rural, more working class, less ideological and generally more distrustful of lobbyists, big business and “the experts.” And that has been a big help for a cause that is bucking just about every one of those groups.

Long a fringe health food for new-age hippies and fad-chasing liberal foodies, raw milk has won over the hearts and minds of GOP legislators and regulators in the last few years. (The Iowa vote broke almost perfectly along party lines with nearly all Republicans in favor and only a handful of Democrats defecting to their side.) And it’s not just in Iowa. Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming all have passed laws (or changed regulations) since 2020 legalizing the sale of raw milk on farms or in stores.

The antivax movement has followed a similar trajectory:  from crunchy left to Trumpy right.

Richard Nixon's father insisted on raw milk.  Nixon believed that it caused the diseases that killed his brothers Harold and Arthur. 

Little Gender Bias in Academic Science

Katherine Knott at Inside Higher Ed:

Claims of widespread gender bias in tenure-track hiring, grant funding and journal acceptances in the academic sciences are not supported by the data, a new study finds.

The paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest looked at two decades of research regarding biases that tenure-track women have faced since 2000. In the end, the authors determined tenure-track women in science, technology, engineering or math were at parity with men in tenure-track positions in the same fields when it comes to grant funding, journal acceptances and recommendation letters.

Women did have an advantage in the hiring process for the tenure-track jobs, though the evidence did show a bias against women in teaching evaluations and salaries. The salary gap, according to the report, was concerning but smaller than the oft-quoted statistic that women in STEM fields make 82 cents for every dollar that men earn. On average, the gap was 9 cents on the dollar.

“We’re getting really close to an equitable landscape,” said Wendy Williams, a professor in the department of human development at Cornell University and an author of the paper. “We’ve come 90 percent of the way, and so what stands between us and that is not an insurmountable task anymore. It’s really important for young women in college who are considering going to grad school and women in grad school who are considering becoming professors.”

Williams said the discourse about sexism in higher education can discourage some women from choosing a career in the academy.

Williams co-wrote the paper with Stephen Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell, and Shulamit Kahn, an associate professor of economics at Boston University. The paper was “an adversarial collaboration,” bringing together researchers with different viewpoints. Williams and Ceci have written often to rebut frequent talking points on gender bias in STEM, while Kahn has a history of revealing gender inequities in her field.

Citizen Science and the Great Backyard Bird Count

Many posts have discussed volunteering and civic virtue.

Julia Rubin at AP:

It’s a given that when the Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, will be joining in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago.

For Moira Dalibor, a middle-school math teacher a couple hours away in Lexington, this will be the first count. She’s leading a group of students and parents to an arboretum for an exercise in data-gathering.

They’re expected to be among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, or GBBC.

In India, which had the highest participation outside the U.S. last year, tens of thousands of people submitted bird checklists — a 28% increase from 2021.

This global data goes into the eBird database used by scientists for research on bird populations, which have declined sharply overall in past decades. It’s part of a rise in “citizen science” projects in which volunteers collect data about the natural world for use by researchers.

Origins of COVID

Michael Worobey and colleagues have an article in Science titled: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." The abstract:

Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Declining Trust in Scientists

From Pew:

Americans’ confidence in groups and institutions has turned downward compared with just a year ago. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, once seemingly buoyed by their central role in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, is now below pre-pandemic levels.

Overall, 29% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the best interests of the public, down from 40% who said this in November 2020. Similarly, the share with a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests is down by 10 percentage points (from 39% to 29%), according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The new findings represent a shift in the recent trajectory of attitudes toward medical scientists and scientists. Public confidence in both groups had increased shortly after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to an April 2020 survey. Current ratings of medical scientists and scientists have now fallen below where they were in January 2019, before the emergence of the coronavirus.

Scientists and medical scientists are not the only groups and institutions to see their confidence ratings decline in the last year. The share of Americans who say they have a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public’s best interests has fallen 14 points, from 39% in November 2020 to 25% in the current survey. And the shares of Americans with a great deal of confidence in K-12 public school principals and police officers have also decreased (by 7 and 6 points, respectively).

...

Confidence in medical scientists and scientists across racial and ethnic groups plays out differently for Democrats and Republicans.

White Democrats (52%) are more likely than Hispanic (36%) and Black (30%) Democrats to say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public’s best interests. However, large majorities of all three groups say they have at least a fair amount of confidence in medical scientists.

Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 14% of White adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists, while 52% say they have a fair amount of confidence. Views among Hispanic Republicans are very similar to those of White Republicans, in contrast to differences seen among Democrats.

There are similar patterns in confidence in scientists. (However, the sample size for Black Republicans in the survey is too small to analyze on these measures.) See the Appendix for more.

Accepting COVID Misinformation, Rejecting Science

From the COVID States Project:

We asked respondents to mark four popular vaccine misinformation claims as true or false. When in doubt, they could also select “Not sure.” Here are some of the patterns we found:

• While we observe a decline in believing misinformation since the early days of COVID-19 vaccination efforts in 2021, 16% of Americans still hold vaccine misperceptions. Close to half (46%) are uncertain about the veracity of at least one vaccine misinformation statement.

• People aged 25 to 44, parents with children under 18, Americans who did not go to college, and Republicans are most likely to hold vaccine misperceptions, with over 20% of the respondents in each group marking at least one misinformation statement as true.

• Early in the pandemic, people with high socioeconomic status were amongst the most likely to hold vaccine misperceptions. Over time,people with graduate degrees and those with high income made large shifts towards rejecting misinformation. The groups least likely to espouse false claims now include graduate degree holders, Democrats, Asian Americans, and those over 65 years of age.

•  A third of the people who believe vaccine misinformation statements are aware that scientific and medical experts reject those claims as false.  Additionally, over a fifth of Americans (21%) are aware that science considers a particular claim to be false, but still say they are not sure whether to believe it or not. 

• People who think they know a lot about COVID-19 vaccines are more likely to hold vaccine misperceptions. Among those who claimed to have expert knowledge, 48% believed false claims compared to only 16% of those who said they knew almost nothing about vaccines. 

• Compared to those with no vaccine misperceptions, Americans who believe misinformation claims are less likely to trust the government, news media, science, and medicine. That pattern is reversed with regard to trust in Fox News and Donald Trump.

• Vaccine misinformation beliefs, uncertainty about false claims, trust in government and science remain among the most important predictors of getting vaccinated, even after accounting for demographic and other factors

people with

graduate degrees and those with high income made large shifts towards

rejecting misinformation. The groups least likely to espouse false claims now

include graduate degree holders, Democrats, Asian Americans, and those

over 65 years of age.

The War on Dr. Fauci

Fact check: A quote tweeted by a Republican congressman to criticize Dr. Fauci came from a neo-Nazi convicted for child pornography, not Voltaire https://t.co/ASOP7JzjIy

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 31, 2022

Sheryl Gay Stolberg at NYT:

“Populism is essentially anti: anti-establishment, anti-expertise, anti-intellectual and anti-media,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, adding that Dr. Fauci “is an establishment expert intellectual who is in the media.”

For the 81-year-old immunologist, a venerated figure in the world of science, it is a jarring last chapter of a government career that has spanned half a century. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984, he has helped lead the response to various public health crises, including AIDS and Ebola, and advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. President George H.W. Bush once cited him as a hero.

Now, though, some voters are parroting right-wing commentators who compare Dr. Fauci to the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Candidates in hotly contested Republican primaries like Ohio’s are trying to out-Trump one another by supplanting Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Dr. Fauci as a political boogeyman.

In Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz recently ran a Twitter ad calling for a debate — not between candidates, but between him and Dr. Fauci. In Wisconsin, Kevin Nicholson, a onetime Democrat running for governor as a conservative outsider, says Dr. Fauci “should be fired and referred to prosecutors.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has released an advertisement last month telling Dr. Fauci to “pound sand” via the beach sandals the governor’s re-election campaign is now selling: “Freedom Over Fauci Flip-Flops.” Mr. DeSantis has coined a new term: “Faucism.” In Washington, lawmakers are taking aim at Dr. Fauci’s salary, finances and influence.

“I didn’t make myself a polarizing figure,” Dr. Fauci declared in an interview. “I’ve been demonized by people who are running away from the truth.”

The anti-Fauci fervor has taken its toll on his personal life; he has received death threats, his family has been harassed and his home in Washington is guarded by a security detail. His standing with the public has also suffered. In a recent NBC News Poll, just 40 percent of respondents said they trusted Dr. Fauci, down from 60 percent in April 2020.

Still, Mr. Ayres said, Dr. Fauci remains for many Americans “one of the most trusted voices regarding the pandemic.” In a Gallup poll at the end of 2021, his job approval rating was 52 percent. On a list of 10 officials, including Mr. Biden and congressional leaders, only two scored higher: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Gene Editing and Deliberative Polling

Many posts have discussed deliberation, argument, and the value of viewpoint diversity.

A release from the Hastings Center:

- A new report released by The Hastings Center, a leading ethics research institute, finds that the complex issues raised by releasing gene-edited species into the wild demand deep and broad public engagement. The report, Gene Editing in the Wild: Shaping Decisions Through Broad Public Deliberation, provides a path forward to move decision-making from the realm of experts to a more inclusive, values-based approach using the technique of public deliberation – or deliberative democracy.

The goals of gene editing in the wild efforts are wide-ranging, and the benefits potentially transformative--such as preventing mosquitoes from spreading disease. But this work poses major trade-offs that require the public’s consideration.

The report’s twelve essays take up fundamental questions: how should public deliberation be designed? Who should participate? How should deliberation be linked to policy?

The introductory essay, “Public Deliberation About Gene Editing in the Wild,” summarizes the key design elements that can improve broad public deliberations about gene editing in the wild: Framing the question and deciding when to hold broad public deliberation, choosing participants, addressing power, and accounting for and capturing perspectives that are hard to express. The introduction was written by the special report editors: Michael K. Gusmano, Gregory E. Kaebnick, Karen J. Maschke, Carolyn P. Neuhaus, and Ben Curran Wills.

“Regulating Gene Editing in the Wild: Building Regulatory Capacity to Incorporate Deliberative Democracy,” by Karen J. Maschke and Michael K. Gusmano, says that there has not been enough attention to how we should connect public deliberation to the existing regulatory process. The authors argue that, while federal agencies may have capacity to undertake public deliberative activities, there may not be sufficient political support for them to do so.

“Deliberative Public Consultation via Deliberative Polling: Criteria and Methods,” by James S. Fishkin, makes the case that Deliberative Polling, an approach developed by the author, can be usefully employed to engage representative samples to deliberate in depth in controlled experiments so as to yield a picture of the public’s considered judgments. Another it can be cost-effectively conducted online.

“The Decision Phases Framework for Public Engagement: Engaging Stakeholders about Gene Editing in the Wild,” by S. Kathleen Barnhill-Dilling, Adam Kokotovich, and Jason A. Delborne, puts forth a framework for shaping public engagement that tackles when and whom to engage on genetic engineering questions.

“Empowering Indigenous Knowledge in Deliberations on Gene Editing in the Wild,” by Riley Taitingfong and Anika Ullah, identifies Indigenous peoples as key stakeholders in decisions about gene-editing in the wild and argues that engagement activities need not only include Indigenous peoples but also should be designed, conducted, and analyzed in ways that confront longstanding power imbalances that dismiss Indigenous expertise.

The special report grew out of a Hastings Center project funded by the National Science Foundation, The complete report is available for download here.

For more information, contact:

Susan Gilbert or Mark Cardwell
communications@thehastingscenter.org
845-424-4040, ext. 244

 

Science, Policy, and Deliberation

M. Anthony Mills at AEI:

Scientific evidence is indeed vital to public policy. The pandemic has made this undeniable, if it was not already obvious enough. But science does not offer a repository of neutral evidence that arrives, ready-made, onto the political scene. On the contrary, scientific knowledge is an achievement, the result of a complex process in which the judgment of scientific experts — call it expert judgment — plays a decisive role. Utilizing such knowledge to make policy decisions is even more complex, requiring not only expert judgment but also the judgment of those non-experts — call it non-expert judgment — whose experience, knowledge, or know-how is also needed to deliberate well about the best course of action. It follows that judgment and deliberation are not secondary, lesser processes, that we must rely on when integrating scientific evidence into the policymaking process. Rather, judgment and deliberation are essential to this process, in part because they are essential to science itself. Failure to appreciate this fact risks engendering unrealistic expectations about what scientific knowledge can accomplish in practical decision-making, thus inviting not only disappointment, distrust, and skepticism, but also bad policy.

In what follows, I will make a case for this alternative account of scientific knowledge by examining the role that expert judgment plays in scientific reasoning. I will then consider what implications this account has for how we understand practical decision-making informed by scientific knowledge. I conclude by suggesting that integrating scientific evidence into public policy is by nature deliberative, a reciprocal process in which both expert and non-expert judgments must play roles, and which requires that both experts and non-experts act with prudence.

 Full paper here: "The Role of Judgment and Deliberation in Science-Based Policy," by M. Anthony Mills CSAS Working Paper 21-16

Trust in Science and Institutions During the Pandemic

 Reid Wilson at The Hill:

The American public is beginning to lose trust in political leaders and scientific institutions as the coronavirus pandemic drags into its sixth month, troubling signs that raise the prospect that millions of Americans may not take advice or get a vaccine once one becomes available.

Two new surveys show most Americans still trust leading scientists and institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but that those levels of trust are beginning to erode.

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans trust the CDC, according to a survey conducted by the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, a group of researchers at Northeastern University, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern University. That figure is down from 87 percent who said they trusted the Atlanta-based CDC in April.

A poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 67 percent of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the CDC to provide reliable information about the coronavirus. That number has dropped 16 percentage points since April. Trust in the CDC among Republicans has dropped a whopping 30 percentage points.

Patriotism and Pandemic

At WP, William Booth interviews Lancet editor Richard Horton:

Q: In your book, you write, “The story of covid-19 in the United States is one of the strangest paradoxes of the whole pandemic. No other country in the world has the concentration of scientific skill, technical knowledge and productive capacity possessed by the U.S. It is the world’s scientific superpower bar none. And yet this colossus of science utterly failed to bring its expertise successfully to bear on the policy and politics of the nation’s response.”

A: That’s true.

Q: What happened?

A: This is hard. I love America. But it can be very parochial. I think the fact that America sees itself as the greatest country in the world means that it sees itself as impregnable. That view informs not just a response to a pandemic, but attitudes to climate change and other threats.

I don’t think many American public health scientists and government advisers read those papers we published. If they did, I don’t think that they took them seriously. I think there was a very serious miscalculation of the risk by American public health scientists.

I know Tony Fauci well, and his entire career has been forged on the fight against AIDS. He’s a brilliant scientist. He is a brave man. But something went wrong here. I wish I could give you a clear answer as to why, but I can’t. I really can’t explain it.

Polarization and Confidence in Medical Scientists

Cary Funk, Brian Kennedy and Courtney Johnson at Pew:

Among Democrats and those leaning to the Democratic Party, 53% have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public interest, up from 37% in January 2019. But among Republicans and those who lean Republican, 31% express a great deal of confidence in medical scientists, roughly the same as in 2019 (32%). As a result, there is now a 22 percentage point difference between partisan groups when it comes to trust in medical scientists.

While a majority of U.S. adults (59%) believe social distancing measures are helping a lot to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Democrats are more likely to say this than Republicans (69% vs. 49%). And, when asked about possible reasons for the ongoing presence of new infections in the U.S., partisans diverge, particularly when it comes to the role of testing. Three-quarters of Democrats (75%) consider too little testing a major factor behind new disease cases in the U.S. compared with 37% of Republicans.

Most people believe that evidence from public health experts is influencing government policies related to the coronavirus at least a fair amount, but more think such evidence has a great deal of influence on their state’s policies (43%) than on federal policy (26%).

As with views on government handling of the coronavirus, partisans see the intersection of public health and policy through a different lens. For example, about twice as many Republicans (38%) as Democrats (17%) think federal policies to control the spread of the coronavirus are influenced a great deal by evidence from public health experts.

NIH Director Wins Templeton Prize

A release from the John Templeton Foundation:

Geneticist and physician Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, who led the Human Genome Project to its successful completion in 2003 and throughout his career has advocated for the integration of faith and reason, was announced today as the 2020 Templeton Prize Laureate.

In his scientific leadership, public speaking, and popular writing, including his bestselling 2006 book, The Language of God, Collins has demonstrated how religious faith can motivate and inspire rigorous scientific research. “This book argues that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice,” he writes in the introduction, “and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science.” In the book, he endeavors to encourage religious communities to embrace the latest discoveries of genetics and the biomedical sciences as insights to enrich and enlarge their faith.

Collins, 70, was selected as the 2020 Laureate by the Prize judges late last year, but the announcement was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

From 1993 to 2008, Collins directed the National Human Genome Research Institute, guiding the Human Genome Project in its mapping and sequencing of the three billion DNA letters that make up the human genetic instruction book.

Before joining the NIH, Collins served as professor of internal medicine and human genetics at the University of Michigan, where he was known as the “gene hunter” for his pioneering technique of “positional cloning” to pinpoint disease-related genes. His research groups have been responsible for the discovery of the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington’s disease, and Hutchinson-Guilford progeria syndrome, a rare form of premature aging.

These and other genetic breakthroughs have helped launch a new era of precision medicine in which researchers and providers can customize treatment programs for individual patients, and have shed new light on human well-being and the nature and possibilities of the human species.

The announcement was made online at www.templetonprize.org today by the Templeton philanthropies: the John Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and by the Templeton World Charity Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust, based in Nassau, The Bahamas.

The Templeton Prize, valued at 1.1 million British pounds, is one of the world's largest annual individual awards, and honors individuals whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.

In a statement prepared for the announcement, at www.templetonprize.org, Dr. Collins said: “As I write this, almost my every waking moment is consumed by the effort to find treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19. The elegant complexity of human biology constantly creates in me a sense of awe. Yet I grieve at the suffering and death I see all around, and at times I confess I am assailed by doubts about how a loving God would permit such tragedies. But then I remember that the God who hung on the cross is intimately familiar with suffering. I learn and re-learn that God never promised freedom from suffering – but rather to be “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46).”

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Collins has urged faith communities to trust science while debunking various internet conspiracies, to link inevitable bad news to opportunities for hope, and to remain strong in their faith. In a recent Washington Post interview, he referenced a favorite verse from Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

“That encourages me,” said Collins, “and faith leaders can spread that kind of exaltation around in a way that I think will encourage others.”

Public Health, Federalism, and Fragmentation

Alan Greenblatt at Governing:

To some extent, public health has been a victim of its own success. Over the past century, the focus of American health care has shifted from public health — which is concerned with infectious diseases and the overall well-being of the community — to treating individuals. Nearly all the health policy energy is devoted to debating questions about how many individuals should be covered and who should pay the bill.

As a result, public health is always a low priority, until it’s the highest possible priority. Public health is lucky to receive a penny or two out of every dollar spent on health care. Before the novel coronavirus struck, funding had been cut in half over the past decade for both public health emergency preparedness and response programs at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the federal hospital preparedness program.

Throughout American history, public health has been fragmented, with first local governments and later states playing a more active role than the federal government. After nearly every modern epidemic, panels of experts have called for Washington to play a more robust role. Those recommendations typically go nowhere.

The problem during the coronavirus crisis is not so much that the federal government hasn’t taken full charge, says John Auerbach, president of the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit that advocates for public health. There’s always been a “division of labor” between the levels of government in responding to public health emergencies. The problem is communication between those levels.

Typically, the federal government takes the lead role in setting the medical and scientific strategy, leaving its plans largely to states and localities to carry out, each offering consistent messages. Federal, state and local responses were well-coordinated following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the H1N1 virus, Ebola and Zika, Auerbach says.

In response to COVID-19, however, the CDC has been virtually sidelined. Its daily briefings were canceled back in March. More recently, the White House vetoed a set of detailed guidelines that the CDC prepared for states, localities and businesses to follow in opening back up. In prior crises, you didn't have states competing against each other for resources.

International Ph.D. Students in STEM

From the Congressional Research Service:

According to the National Science Foundation’s 2017 survey of STEM doctorate recipients from U.S. IHEs, 72% of foreign doctorate recipients were still in the United States 10 years after receiving their degrees. This percentage varied by country of origin; for example, STEM graduates from China (90%) and India (83%) stayed at higher rates than European students (69%). There are several avenues—both temporary and permanent—by which foreign students may remain in the United States after graduation (see “Selected Options” in the text box), but some categories have annual numerical limits (“caps”). Practical training programs that give U.S. work authorization to students to be employed in their field while enrolled in school or after graduation do not have caps and have seen a steady increase (see Figure 4). These programs also allow foreign students to remain in the United States legally while they pursue longer-term options, such as H-1B or LPR status

Science, Engineering, America, and China

Elizabeth Redden at Inside Higher Ed:

The U.S. share of global science and technology activity has shrunk in some areas even as absolute activity has continued to grow, as China and other Asian countries have invested in science and engineering education and increased their research spending.

That’s one of the main takeaways of the "State of U.S. Science and Engineering" 2020 report, published by the National Science Board Wednesday. The report has historically been published every other year, but starting with this year's edition, the NSB is transitioning its format from a single report published every two years to a series of shorter reports issued more frequently.
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The report found that employment in science and engineering has increased more rapidly than for the workforce overall, and now accounts for 5 percent of U.S. jobs.

Women accounted for just 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce in 2017, up from 26 percent in 2003. Underrepresented minorities made up just 13 percent of the scientific workforce in 2017, up from 9 percent in 2003 but below their share of the college-educated workforce.

Foreign-born workers account for 30 percent of all individuals employed in science and engineering-related occupations.
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Global research and development expenditures have more than tripled since 2000, growing from $722 billion in 2000 to $2.2 trillion in 2017, fueled largely by growth in China. The U.S. and China together accounted for nearly half of all research and development spending -- 25 and 23 percent, respectively -- in 2017.

In the U.S., federal spending for research and development has increased since 2000, but the share of research and development funded by the federal government -- as opposed to businesses or other entities -- declined, from 25 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2017. Among higher education institutions -- which perform the largest amount of basic research, of which the federal government is the primary funder -- the share of research and development funded by federal sources declined from 57 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2017