When Science Becomes a Target: The Growing Threat to Scientists in the Age of Misinformation
Dr. Peter Hotez – a renown research scientist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas – spoke at a 2023 event about the anti-science movement at Arizona State University presented by The Integrity Project.
The Integrity Project
Last Friday, the streets surrounding the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta became a scene of chaos and fear. A police officer, David Rose, was killed. A neighborhood was locked down. And the suspected gunman—30-year-old Patrick Joseph White—exchanged fire near the CDC complex after allegedly spraying the building with bullets.
Authorities have not officially confirmed White’s motive. But according to his father and neighbors, he was consumed by anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, blaming the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine for his depression and speaking frequently about fabricated plots involving the pandemic. Hours before the shooting, his father had warned police that White was suicidal.
If the emerging facts bear out, this was not simply an act of personal despair. It was another episode in an alarming trend: the transformation of mistrust in science into outright hostility and, increasingly, violence.
The New Frontlines of Science
Dr. Peter Hotez, the Texas-based vaccine scientist and public health advocate, has long warned that we are entering an era where scientists themselves are targets. Hotez has faced a torrent of harassment and credible threats for his vaccine work — to the point of requiring security. He is far from alone.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials across the United States endured sustained intimidation campaigns. Epidemiologists were doxxed. Death threats arrived in their inboxes. Protesters showed up at their homes. Some, like Michigan’s top health official, needed police protection; others resigned under the pressure.
Research also done during COVID-19 found that one in three public health workers experienced threats or harassment over their work. That trend hasn’t faded—and for some in the field, the CDC shooting felt like the inevitable escalation of an environment where public health guidance has been weaponized into personal grievance. And the CDC shooting is not an isolated tragedy. It is part of a pattern in which science-based institutions—and the people who work in them—are treated not as sources of public good, but as enemies in an ideological war.
How Misinformation Turns Deadly
The mechanics of this hostility are increasingly well-understood. It often begins with false narratives seeded in niche communities—claims like “mRNA vaccines are bioweapons”. These ideas are then amplified by online influencers and podcast hosts who package them into emotionally charged content designed to provoke anger and fear. As the rhetoric spreads, it becomes normalized when mainstream political figures repeat it, reframing legitimate scientific work as partisan deception. Eventually, the focus narrows and becomes personal: scientists and public health officials are turned into symbols of the supposed “enemy,” making them direct targets for harassment or even violence.
As Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC official, put it: “The responsibility for this lies not just with the shooter but those who have been spreading disinformation and misinformation against public health.”
This process is not abstract. It played out in the harassment of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who required a security detail after relentless threats. It has appeared in attacks on election workers after 2020, where misinformation prompted armed intimidation at their homes. And it now appears to have reached the front doors of the CDC.
Why the Stakes Are So High
When scientists are silenced by fear, the loss is not just personal—it is societal. Research slows. Public guidance is diluted or avoided altogether. The chilling effect allows disinformation to spread unchecked, unchallenged by those best equipped to rebut it.
This undermines more than public health or environmental policy. It erodes the foundation of evidence-based decision-making in a democracy. If expertise becomes synonymous with political allegiance, then every data point, every model, every recommendation is dismissed as “propaganda” by someone and our capacity to respond to crises collapses..
In the aftermath of last week’s attack, some CDC staffers openly voiced frustration that federal leaders, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly questioned the safety of COVID vaccines despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, have helped legitimize the very conspiracy theories that endanger their lives. For many CDC employees, the attack comes after a year of budget cuts, early retirements, and the loss of entire research programs, including work on gun violence prevention.
Attacks on science are rarely about science alone. They are often proxies for deeper battles over identity, ideology, and control. But the casualties—measured in delayed policy, preventable illness, or, as Atlanta reminds us, human lives—are very real
The Urgency of the Moment
The Atlanta shooting is a tragedy for Officer David Rose’s family and community. It is also a stark warning. The war on science is no longer a metaphor. It is a physical danger for those who dedicate their lives to truth and public service.
In a democracy, defending science is not optional. It is as essential as defending the rule of law, because the two are intertwined: both require facts, transparency, and the courage to speak even when speaking invites risk.
If we allow fear and misinformation to drive scientists from the public square, we will lose more than research papers or policy debates. We will lose the capacity to meet our greatest challenges with reason and evidence...and we will lose lives in the process.
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