By Julia Preszler
Between misinformed coronavirus briefings, derision of the nation’s chief infectious disease expert and casting doubt on well-established climate science in the midst of raging wildfires, the Trump administration has not been a friend to science. So much so that respecting science became one of the core tenets in President-Elect Joe Biden’s “battle for the soul of a nation.”
For many scientists, the impending transfer of power from Trump to Biden has allowed them to release a sigh of relief. The problems they seek to solve will not become any easier, but at least they will not need to fight an uphill battle when it comes to support from the person occupying this nation’s highest office.
In an open letter to Biden written by Ben Santer, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, he writes that federally funded science agencies were unraveled and reconstructed in order to advance President Trump’s agenda. “The Environmental Protection Agency became the Environmental Pollution Agency, rolling back protections on clean air and clean water, and providing regulatory relief to President Trump’s campaign contributors from the fossil fuel industry,” Santer wrote.
Scientists working in government agencies felt effectively censored, Santer said. Some worried whether their green-card applications could be negatively affected if they published a study that went among the administration’s beliefs and agenda.
Biden has already announced that he will immediately reverse Trump’s rollback of 100 public health and environmental rules from Obama’s administration.
While Trump has largely left the coronavirus pandemic response up to each individual state, Biden will likely strive for a more cohesive nationwide plan, and has already urged people to wear masks throughout his campaign and during his first public appearances after the election. “We never had a united plan for the United States,” said Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration, in an interview with Time Magazine. “The 50 states have been going in 50 different directions. To continue doing what we are doing now will only prolong the pandemic unnecessarily and cause more unnecessary suffering.”
Of course, the Biden administration and scientists will still need to contend with those who supported Trump’s anti-science rhetoric, and the skepticism he stowed among the public. Only about half of Americans polled by Gallup in October said they would get vaccinated if a free, FDA-approved vaccine were available immediately.
In her debate with Vice President Mike Pence, Kamala Harris said “If the public-health professionals, if Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, if doctors tell us we should take it, I would be first in line. If Donald Trump tells us we should take it, then I’m not taking it.”
Whether having Biden as president will affect people’s perception of a forthcoming vaccine remains to be seen.