Mar 22, 2020 09:08 PM
https://undark.org/2020/03/22/paying-the...ism-again/
INTRO (David Michaels): The short but tragic history of the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis has been shaped by the same corporate-backed science denialism that has long been deployed by the tobacco, fossil fuel, chemical, and mining industries to fight public health and environmental regulation. That denialism has infected the body of the Republican party and now the Trump administration.
Experts in manufacturing scientific doubt on behalf of corporate polluters have been installed in influential posts, shaping the work of key government agencies. Hundreds of dedicated, career scientists have left the agencies, leaving huge gaps in expertise. World-renowned scientists were dismissed from advisory committees and important public health functions, like the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, have been shuttered.
We are reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and expertise that Republican politicians and their corporate allies have sown for decades.
We are now reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and expertise Republican politicians and their corporate allies have sown for decades. Long before the current crisis, they belittled the science that documented the dangers of tobacco, firearms, numerous toxic chemicals and pollutants, and, of course, the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases. They frequently accused public health scientists of being scaremongers seeking to advance their own careers or political ideology... (MORE)
INTRO (David Michaels): The short but tragic history of the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis has been shaped by the same corporate-backed science denialism that has long been deployed by the tobacco, fossil fuel, chemical, and mining industries to fight public health and environmental regulation. That denialism has infected the body of the Republican party and now the Trump administration.
Experts in manufacturing scientific doubt on behalf of corporate polluters have been installed in influential posts, shaping the work of key government agencies. Hundreds of dedicated, career scientists have left the agencies, leaving huge gaps in expertise. World-renowned scientists were dismissed from advisory committees and important public health functions, like the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, have been shuttered.
We are reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and expertise that Republican politicians and their corporate allies have sown for decades.
We are now reaping the consequences of the rejection of science and expertise Republican politicians and their corporate allies have sown for decades. Long before the current crisis, they belittled the science that documented the dangers of tobacco, firearms, numerous toxic chemicals and pollutants, and, of course, the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases. They frequently accused public health scientists of being scaremongers seeking to advance their own careers or political ideology... (MORE)