Attacks on pandemic scientists get more visibility
🌐 My nervous moment that drove the story home.
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It was an easy first sentence to write.
But one of the hardest pieces I’ve written so far.
I spoke to physician and researcher Marcus Lacerda this past January, after reading an account of the death threats he received in the early days of Brazil’s brush with the pandemic in this article by Estella Ektorp in Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The interview followed others that I had lined up for the feature. Each took on its own personality. One interviewee was cautious and guarded. Another let the words come out in a torrent and thanked me for asking the questions no one was asking at the time. And so on.
But when I connected with Lacerda over Zoom that day, a feeling of unease started to creep up on me.
As I went through my usual intros, on the other side of the screen, Lacerda was completely silent and still. He listened intently, without expression. I had no idea what to expect—“does he want to do this?”, I thought to myself. I was nervous.
Then I heard these words:
It was probably the worst time of my life.
The next 20 minutes turned into a flow of words, uninterrupted, about the history of Lacerda’s research on chloroquine, the fallout it unleashed, and how it turned his life into a nightmare.
I knew, then and there, that the feeling I got in that arresting moment had to be passed on to the readers of the feature I was writing for Nature Medicine.
It very easily became the first sentence of the piece that—less easily—then wove through the stories of other doctors and scientists with similar experiences, alongside the statistics and the bigger issues these attacks touch on: simplistic narratives, toxic relationships, the risk of silence.
Why am I talking about this now?
Because this week, the visibility of this problem took a welcome step forward.
A poll of 321 scientists by Nature magazine found that 15% received death threats after speaking publicly on the pandemic, with many others being threatened with physical or sexual violence (Nature + Guardian). The reports also document the distress that followed these experiences.
When I wrote about the data documenting such attacks, the little information I could find was specific to doctors and nurses. When it came to scientists, it was practically non-existent. This is why Nature’s survey is an important step towards the work needed to shed light on the attacks and their far-reaching ramifications.
One of those ramifications is the fear of speaking out. I had spoken to Susannah Sirkin, director of policy and a senior advisor at the NGO Physicians for Human Rights, who said of healthcare workers’ experience during the pandemic:
We’ve never seen this across-the-board level of fear about going to work and speaking out, where the threats and attacks are coming from a system.
Another is the skewed impact it has on the pandemic conversation—prominent US virologist Angela Rasmussen feels strongly about this issue and the systemic nature of it:
It certainly disproportionately undermines women and underrepresented groups from participating in the conversation.
Neil Ferguson, a prominent epidemiologist in the UK, lamented the tendency for simple narratives and politics—looking for someone to blame, or for evidence to fit an existing position:
It is a simplistic view of science, particularly science as it applies to crises.
Nathan Peiffer-Smadja—a young, vocal doctor working in France—saw a risk to medicine as we know it:
I suspect it will be a lot more difficult in France to include participants in clinical trials.
There’s also a subtler impact on scientific work. Lacerda had explained how time that could have been spent on his research was instead spent explaining clinical trials to lawyers.
And there’s a bottom line that connects with this moment in society’s relationship with science, which Ireland-based researcher and communicator David Grimes articulated nicely:
If we allow the extreme elements to dominate the conversation, that is exactly what we will get: domination of fringe views, and it’ll affect public perception.
Nature Medicine’s editorial team deserves credit for being alive to this issue early. And before that, credit is due to The Lancet journals, which published accounts that proved to be invaluable leads.
That’s how it goes—one building block after the other, one piece of journalism after another.
Briefing Highlights
TREND TO WATCH
All eyes are on the forthcoming COP26 climate summit. The prospect of a result that meets the targets of the Paris Agreement was already looking bleak. The global energy crisis, which has caused a surge in the prices of natural gas and a shortage of coal, is now adding more uncertainty—if not jitters—to that prospect. Depending on outlook, experts see the crisis as a warning about the risks of the energy transition, or as evidence of the need for it. India’s energy vulnerability is an example of how it can impact pledges by major economies with a crucial role at the summit. Both China and India, among the world's largest carbon emitters, will be watched closely.
Based on Briefings October 5 + October 12. (Sign up here)
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UNDER THE RADAR
About a third of China's Belt and Road infrastructure projects are struggling because of public protests, labour violations, pollution and corruption. The infrastructure drive is also saddling poorer nations with hidden debts as large as $385 billion.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Global number of Covid-19 cases and deaths on the decline - CIDRAP + UN News
More than 70% of African countries miss Covid vaccination target - Axios + Devex + NYT
Merck’s antiviral pill a possible game-changer for treatment - WaPo + STAT + PBS NewsHour
HEALTH
'An historic day': Malaria vaccine receives WHO seal of approval - Devex + STAT + NYT + Axios
One in five 15- to 24-year-olds globally ‘often feel depressed’, finds Unicef - Guardian
Air pollution linked to millions of birth complications across the globe - Environmental Health News
Guatemala: Anti-vaccine villagers attack and hold nurses with Covid jabs - BBC + WaPo
ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE
Illegal mining in the Amazon hits record high amid Indigenous protests - Nature
Indonesia’s pandemic-fuelled problem: Mounds of medical waste – Al Jazeera
Indonesian activists build museum out of 10,000 items of plastic waste - WaPo
Manila Bay mangroves ‘choking’ in plastic pollution - Guardian
HUMAN RIGHTS
Women across Latin America march in favour of abortion rights - TRF
Chile lawmakers take 'first step' towards easing abortion rules – Reuters
Under fire for abuses, Egypt releases first human rights strategy to mixed reviews - WaPo
HUMANITARIAN
Ethiopia is deliberately starving its own citizens - Guardian + Economist + PBS
Millions of Venezuelans are fleeing to the south—through South America’s ‘poetic heart’ - Nat Geo
Refugees in Cameroon have turned a desert camp into a thriving forest - Euronews
🎥 VISUAL | Now in power, Taliban set sights on Afghan drug underworld - AP + Vice
From the week’s global soundtrack 🌐
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