Scientific information and public policy engage in a delicate dance of balancing the ever-growing discoveries of how our world works and how those discoveries impact our daily lives. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw several years where politics took precedent over scientific information and integrity, leading to the promotion of radical transgender surgeries for minors, potentially dangerous experimental vaccines mandated in some places in America, and preemptive pardons for health leaders with supposed scientific integrity. Clearly there is an imbalance between public policy and the integrity of scientific information.
Now, with the changes taking place at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), America has the opportunity to make real progress and return to scientific integrity. These changes also allow us to ask the important question that has been cast to the wayside for the past four years – what is the proper role of science in policymaking? It seems like a simple question, but the answer is far from being that easily digestible, especially as the responsibility of crafting policy has been ceded by officials to tyrannical so-called “experts” like former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci. He should have been only one voice of many, but the federal government’s pandemic response was handed to him as health czar on a silver platter.
First and foremost, quantitative scientific data like the number of species in a given land area, the projected impact on Americans’ health from chemical use, the measurement of air quality and hazardous pollutants in our communities’ air, and more, is not the final backstop for policy. Policymakers have several different ways to utilize this data — such as through regulatory, statutory, or enforcement measures — but it cannot be the only driver of policy. And, when it is, the consequences are vast. In fact, policymakers must weigh multiple different considerations, including legal factors, socio-economic impact, the ethics and morality behind the move, and many other facets when crafting new policy that impacts Americans.
Recommended
However, what we saw over the past four years was a coordinated effort by unelected, partisan bureaucrats and ambitious, ethically-dubious academics who maneuvered their own findings as facts that required specific policy decisions. Worse, they were enabled to craft harmful policies with the power afforded to them by Congress. Often, these policies were pushed in tandem with fear-mongering tactics to ensure compliance. Many of them planted untold negative effects into American society, with some running afoul of our nation’s legal norms. And, worst, these sweeping, draconian policies were put into place because some portion of our population — be it the elderly, sick, etc. — might benefit from such a mandate.
One sweeping measure implemented across the U.S. at the behest of “experts” deployed by teachers’ unions was the closure of schools. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), was one of the most visible proponents of closing schools — measures that set American students back academically and gave many students a long list of mental health issues including “anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, insomnia, emotional disturbance, irritability,” and more, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Now, Weingarten knows how bad her policy was, and is lying through her teeth to save face.
These cruel and brutal tactics to stop the spread of COVID-19, such as lockdowns, deteriorated Americans’ mental health. These tactics were oppressive, and several were declared to be unconstitutional. Vaccine mandates targeting private companies were struck down by the Supreme Court. Additionally, the Supreme Court also did not uphold the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) attempt to control the housing market with not one, but two eviction moratoriums. These half-baked pseudoscientific ideas also targeted children, with the NIH promotion of nongovernmental organizations — including WPATH and the Endocrine Society — peddling sex change procedures for kids.
All this madness we are seeing from the Left came from their desire to have government “experts” dictate policy rather than it be crafted via their elected officials. Fortunately, America has the chance to return to constitutional governance and sound public policy not crafted by anointed “experts” that have only their own ambitions and interests at heart.
Most of all, we need to place scientific integrity at the top of the American academic community, and our new leadership has the opportunity to ensure that happens.
Martin Hoyt is the Director for Public Health Reform Alliance, a nonpartisan organization committed to increasing transparency and oversight on the public health system, so it works better for all Americans.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member