In its first three months in office, the Trump regime has unleashed an all-sided full-on assault against science. Program after program has been cancelled or slashed. Scientists and scientific institutions themselves have been slandered and threatened for refusing to go along with or publish the profoundly anti-scientific lies demanded by the regime. The attack on science both serves their fascist program of unlimited economic plunder and the necessity of the regime to foster an unthinking society. The fascists promote ignorant belief in conspiracy theories, fundamentalist and fanatical religious beliefs, and pseudo-scientific “theories” to “justify” and reinforce racial and gender oppression.

Here are some of these attacks on science just in the first three months of the Trump fascist regime.

● Defunding major health and science research: The universities are where a lot of important scientific research is conducted in the U.S. This research is in danger because of Trump’s threats of major funding cuts unless universities like Harvard agree to the regime’s fascist demands. So far, Trump has cancelled or frozen $6 billion in research grants and contracts at various universities and may cut even more. On top of that, the National Institutes of Health has slashed at least $2.3 billion in research funding, with the biggest cuts in “the study of infectious diseases, heart and lung ailments, and basic research into fundamental biological systems,” according to the website STAT.

On March 31, nearly 2,000 doctors, researchers, and scientists—members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—put out an open letter against the Trump administration’s slashing of funds for science: “The funding cuts are forcing institutions to pause research (including studies of new disease treatments), dismiss faculty, and stop enrolling graduate students—the pipeline for the next generation’s scientists….” The science journal Nature points out that these cuts affect a wide range of research such as “test for lead contamination in water, a project to measure the oldest light in the Universe and a study of heat and drought’s effects on the brain,” among many, many others.

● Undermining life-saving vaccines: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is infamous for his stand against vaccines, which he calls “dangerous.” This flies in the face of the truth that vaccines have helped to wipe out deadly diseases like smallpox, which used to kill millions of people, and polio, which took the lives of 3,000 children and paralyzed many more just in 1952, before the polio vaccine was developed and used widely. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy claimed that he supported the use of vaccines—but the actions he has taken since as part of the Trump regime show that he was lying.

Among other anti-vaccine actions under Kennedy, the HHS halted dozens of scientific research projects related to use of vaccines and reasons people have for being hesitant to receive vaccines; stopped studies for vaccines for future pandemics; shelved a campaign to promote the flu vaccine; cut major funding to states for modernizing childhood immunization programs; and forced the resignation of the top official at the Food and Drug Administration overseeing vaccines.

● Spreading misinformation about measles vaccines: Measles is a highly contagious disease that is most common in children. According to Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and leading expert on viral diseases, “Measles, at one time, was the single leading killer of children globally. And it caused hundreds of deaths annually in the United States in the pre-vaccine era.” Since January of this year, there has been an outbreak of measles in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico affecting at least 800 people so far. Those affected are mostly children who have not received the measles vaccine. This is the largest single measles outbreak in the U.S. since 2000, when measles was declared “eliminated” in the U.S. because of the vaccine. 

Kennedy has long pushed the claim that the measles vaccine causes autism—a claim disproven by mountains of scientific evidence. At one point in the current measles outbreak, Kennedy did say that the vaccine is the most effective response. But he has taken actions that actually undermine the vaccine and spread disinformation. He hired someone known for promoting the unscientific claim about the measles vaccine causing autism for a study on that supposed “link.” He has promoted various “alternatives” to vaccines, which have no proven effects against measles or actually could be harmful to a person’s health. Promoting such fake “alternatives” has the effect of pulling people away from the measure scientifically proven as the most effective against measles—the vaccine.

● Threatening to prosecute medical journals: Medical journals are an important source of scientific information and advances in different areas of medicine. According to the New York Times, Edward Martin Jr., the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, recently sent threatening letters to at least three medical journals. The letters “accus[ed] them of political bias and ask[ed] a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.” 

The letter sent to the journal Chest (published by the American College of Chest Physicians) accused them of being “partisans in various scientific debates” and demanded answers to a series of questions, such as whether they made sure there was “viewpoint diversity.” (What the MAGA fascists mean by this is not vigorous scientific debate but, for example, giving “equal time” to bogus claims about vaccines causing diseases.) At least two other journals received identically worded letters.

Kennedy made an even more open threat against medical journals last year before becoming the HHS head: “I’m going to litigate against you under the racketeering laws, under the general tort laws. I’m going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you’re going to start publishing real science…” (Again, what those in the MAGA regime mean by “real science” is whatever serves their fascist program, while science that presents roadblocks to their aims—such as evidence of climate change—is labeled “fake.”)

● Viciously attacking people with autism: Aside from promoting the falsehood that autism is caused by vaccines, Kennedy has spread other harmful untruths. He directly contradicted findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that increases in the number of people with autism in past few decades are connected to better screening and diagnosis and access to services. Instead, Kennedy claims that this increase is mainly caused by “environmental toxins” and that autism is an “epidemic” and a “preventable disease.” There is much that is still unknown about the complex causes of autism, but an April 17 statement by leading autism organizations points out about Kennedy’s statements: “Claims that Autism is ‘preventable’ is not supported by scientific consensus and perpetuate stigma. Language framing Autism as a ‘chronic disease,’ a ‘childhood disease’ or ‘epidemic’ distorts public understanding and undermines respect for Autistic people.” The statement also notes: “At the same time, federal proposals to reduce funding for programs like Medicaid, the Department of Education, and the Administration for Community Living threaten the very services that Autistic individuals and their families rely on.”

And now, Kennedy is starting a national “registry” to gather information from private medical records about people with autism, in the name of “research.” One parent of two children with autism says in an online petition opposing this registry: “[W]hen you strip away the language, you’re left with something chilling: They are building a list. A list of people like my children. A list of autistic individuals—tracked, labeled, and filed under the guise of public health. This is not support. It is surveillance….” A Democratic political strategist wrote, “Let’s be clear: this echoes the darkest chapters of history, when regimes like Nazi Germany used medical registries to target and dehumanize vulnerable populations.” (For more on current scientific understanding of autism, see Democracy Now! interview with Dr. Peter Hotez.)

● Shutting down climate science: As part of its fascist program around the environment, the Trump regime is moving to cripple the science of climate change and attack climate scientists—at a time when the world is accelerating toward catastrophe because of global warming. Go here for an article by the Revcom Environmental Writing Group for more on this MAGA fascist assault on climate science and scientists.

The stakes in this are high. We need more, much more, scientific research as well as broad scientific education among non-scientists if humanity is to deal with the huge challenges now being posed by climate change, pollution and the potential for new pandemics. Science under capitalism—despite what are often heroic and very self-sacrificing efforts of many scientists—is typically warped and held back both by the channeling of scientific resources to military use and to the extraction of greater and greater profit, and by the orientation of the educational system and media to the relentless requirements of a profit-driven capitalist system. 

To get a sense of what could be possible in a socialist society freeing itself of those chains, go here. Yet the Trump fascist regime “resolves” this contradiction by going after any science or scientific research that contradicts or could potentially call into question its fascist tenets, including the religious fanaticism it relies upon and fosters, and/or that might cut against the overall ignorance of science and the scientific method. The stakes could not be higher.