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Tanzina Vega: I'm Tanzina Vega and this is The Takeaway. Since President Trump took office, he and his administration have consistently refuted and acted contrary to the advice of scientists on everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to natural disasters, which have been made worse by climate change. Here's the President speaking recently about the wildfires in California, which was the worst fire season to date.

President Trump: It'll start getting cooler, you just watch.

Wade Crowfoot: I wish science agreed with you.

President Trump: I don't think science knows, actually. Tom.

Tanzina: Science does know about the dangers of climate change and the coronavirus too, but the president's disregard for experts has never been more clear than during the pandemic.

President Trump: I went through it. Now they say I’m immune. I feel so powerful. I’ll walk into that audience. I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. Can’t lock yourself in the basement and say "I can’t bother with the world." You have to get out and it’s risky, but you got to get out.

Tanzina: Traditionally scientists have stayed above the partisan fray, but scientists today are speaking out in unprecedented ways to warn what another four years under the Trump administration could cost the country. For the first time in its 208-year run, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial denouncing the Trump administration and its lack of scientific-based actions in their response to the COVID 19 pandemic. Quote, "The response of our nation's leaders has been consistently inadequate." The editorial noted.

Similarly for the first time in its 175-year history, Scientific American backed a presidential candidate, endorsing Joe Biden and condemning President Trump's response to the pandemic. Writing, quote, "The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the US and its people because he rejects evidence and science."

President Trump: I am somebody that gets it and nobody really knows. It's not something that's so hard and fast.

Tanzina: For more on this, I'm joined now by Dr. Eric J. Rubin, the Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Rubin, thanks for being with me.

Dr. Rubin: Hi, thanks for having me.

Tanzina: Valorie Aquino is a co-founder of the National March for Science and a human and environment researcher at the University of New Mexico. Valorie, thank you for joining me.

Valorie: Hi, Tanzina. Thank you for inviting me to join this conversation.

Tanzina: Dr. Rubin, let's start with you. Why did the New England Journal of Medicine decide to speak out at this moment against the Trump administration?

Dr. Rubin: It was really an accumulation of lots of things. There were many simple things that our country should have instituted and we just failed to do them. Over time, it became clear that we as scientists and clinicians could offer the best advice we could, but it just wasn't being acted upon. In the end, we just decided that the only thing we could do is have a change in our leaders rather than more advice.

Tanzina: Were there specific things, Dr. Rubin, that the Trump administration has done during the pandemic that pushed you and the other editors to make this call?

Dr. Rubin: I think it was more what they failed to do. We know what works. We know that there are public health measures that can be instituted that really help in controlling the spread of disease and yet none of them were applied consistently at all.

Tanzina: What you're talking about specifically are things like wearing masks?

Dr. Rubin: That's right, wearing masks, social distancing, contact tracing, testing, isolation, and quarantine. All of these things were practiced haphazardly throughout the country and that was the fault of many leaders, but to a great extent the federal government has an important role in that and they just didn't step up.

Tanzina: Dr. Rubin, has an academic or science journal ever weighted into electoral politics like this?

Dr. Rubin: I can't speak for all journals. I think there are some that are a bit more political than we are, but for ours, no. I think that's been true for many of the major journals. You mentioned Scientific American, I'd add Science and The Lancet and Nature to that as well.

Tanzina: Have you had any responses to the editorial so far, Dr. Rubin?

Tanzina: Oh, yes, we have. Largely they've been positive, but I think there's a smattering of concerns about whether or not we're the right ones to be opining on such things.

Tanzina: What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Rubin: This is an emergency, this is the biggest public health crisis we faced in this country and in fact, worldwide, and it's hard to not act when you see something like this. In fact, that's our job. Our job is to communicate the information that can help the health in general and the public health overall and to not comment on the most important thing going on at the time would be a dereliction of duty.

Tanzina: Valorie, this is not a new conversation, at least as far as scientists are concerned under the Trump administration. You have been active at the intersection of science and politics since very early in the Trump presidency. I recall around the time that the Women's March was being put together, there was also a March for Science in 2017. What was the goal then?

Valorie: That's right. Actually, the Women's March had inspired me personally to get involved as the national co-chair for the inaugural March for Science which was held on Earth Day in 2017. That had galvanized over a million people worldwide in more than 600 cities in dozens of countries around the world to demonstrate for science because of what people in various communities throughout our international community were seeing in their spaces.

To me, it's clear that what's going on, isn't exclusively restricted to the US alone. While it might be personally gainful or maybe politically convenient to levy anti-science accusations against one or another political party, evidence does show this phenomenon was shared and is shared in situations around the world.

One of the things that concerned me is how this collective international outcry for political leaders to listen to science, education, health experts, it shares space with the rise in authoritarian governments or authoritarian leaning decision-makers and how we really need to work together as a global community to combat the erosion of critical thinking and to defend hard-won democratic processes.

Tanzina: You're concerned specifically, I'm thinking about countries like Brazil, perhaps, and the UK?

Valorie: Yes, and also India, the Philippines, Mexico. They've had a lot of March for Science galvanized presence and organizing over the past three years specifically.

Tanzina: Valorie, are you seeing more scientists speaking out publicly about politics now than you have prior to this administration?

Valorie: Absolutely. I see a substantive change. Looking at the past three years, we've all seen a constant parade of evidence demonstrating this administration's consistent undermining of established best practices, of silencing top climate policy and health experts in the federal government, removing publicly-funded climate science data off of publicly funded government websites, and reassigning experts in their fields to positions that hold little meaning for them. To most recently, of course, the President flaunting total disregard for public health safety measures during his own COVID diagnosis.

In that same time, as you've mentioned and as Dr. Eric Rubin have discussed, we've also seen these remarkable and unprecedented spontaneous and organized responses, including the Scientific American and New England Journal of Medicine editorials. As mentioned, they've never done that in their history. One, thank you so much, Dr. Rubin. I also think that in large part it's similar. It's not unlike what a lot of March for Science participants had said after their inaugural involvement.

These have been truly historic times and I think that they're, in large part, due to this administration's embracing and spreading of deliberate misinformation and its rejection and outright removals of trained experts from, again, hard-earned positions. It's almost as if they're taking science and the integrity of the people working for hostage.

Tanzina: How do we explain that, Valorie? You've talked a little bit about how this tends to be a hallmark of authoritarian governments, but how else do we explain that? Dr. Rubin, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that too. What does the Trump administration have to gain by undermining scientists?

Dr. Rubin: I think that there are other factors at play. The Trump administration considers any attack on their economic policy to be undermining them and they feel that the costs of many scientific driven agendas are going to be excessive. I think that would be a reasonable conversation, except that there is real science with which to judge that.

Let me give an example, in Sweden, they made the decision to cut back on their public health measures and increase the rate of transmission to try to get more immune protection in the population. Denmark right next door decided not to do that. Both of those countries made reasoned decisions. They looked at the science and said, we could do this or we could do that and there's no right answer and they chose different paths.

In the US, we just didn't look at the science at all. We really didn't have a plan, instead, we decided to open driven by economic reasons without thinking about the consequences of that. I think we can see the short term problems with doing something like that in the case of an epidemic. In the case of climate change, which Valorie's discussing, it's a much longer-term problem, but again, there are trade-offs that we're not considering here.

Tanzina: Valorie, in your conversations with other scientists, has the urgency increased over the course of the past three years, as you mentioned, since the March for Science?

Valorie: Yes, I feel that, and I've heard that people feel compelled to get out of their typical comfort zones, and to be more vocal and to be more active and civically engaged in their educational and professional and civic responsibilities.

The extreme partisanship and how science has been politicized and skewed to almost something unrecognizable under this administration, has been lethal political theater, and it's being performed at the expense of people's lives and futures. This isn't entertainment TV, this is real life involving real people that have to make decisions without the benefit of reliable scientific leadership and accurate guidance.

Tanzina: Dr. Rubin, it's not just journals, it's also other prominent scientists telling us about this moment. What's different about this moment, in particular, have you ever seen in your career, federal administration this antagonistic to the scientific community?

Dr. Rubin: I don't think I have, and was something that always was concerning throughout this administration. The consequences are so vast right now, we're talking about tens of thousands of excess lives being lost because of the moves of the administration.

Remember, they have the access to the best scientific information out there, not only do they have the availability of journals like ours and many others that are illustrating what's going on scientifically, but they have really outstanding scientists within the government. They have chosen to sideline them, in some cases, cutting budgets, in other cases, overcoming their scientifically made decisions with political ones. It is really incredible, the scale of what's going on at this point.

Tanzina: I'm wondering, Dr. Rubin, also when we've interviewed medical professionals on this show specifically about how they're grappling with the pressures of the coronavirus in different cities across the country where they're seeing spikes in the virus, and obviously emergency rooms overflowing. We here in New York witnessed that firsthand, Dr.Rubin, when you talk to other medical professionals, are they concerned?

These are folks that also are not generally in the political fray, but during this virus, we've seen doctors and nurses have to come out and in some cases, physically put themselves as a barrier between protests and hospitals, in other cases, asking for personal protective equipment that they don't have. In other cases, these are the folks who were dealing with the people who are getting sick by not following the CDC guidelines. What are the medical professionals telling you?

Dr. Rubin: Well, I certainly was on the wards during that peak in Boston which was not quite as bad as it was in New York, but really was very substantial. I think that there's been a tremendous level of frustration. I'm rising to the point of anger over exactly what you're discussing.

After all, people have been putting themselves on the line and they see there aren't enough masks. In fact, we got an alert from the hospital today about restrictions on personal protective equipment, PPE, because there really still is not a full availability of these things. To take chances, to put yourself out there and not have even simple measures available to protect oneself is frustrating, and as I said, angering.

Tanzina: Valorie, what about funding for science under this administration? Have you noticed a decrease in the prioritization of scientific research or funding for scientific research? Again, I'm asking this question with the understanding that a lot of pharmaceutical companies, for example, are now focusing on creating a vaccine for the coronavirus, but more broadly, how has funding been affected by this administration?

Valorie: Well, thanks for asking about that. That's definitely a concern that's also shared by scientists and practitioners outside of the US, because there was actually this public perception study. It was a longitudinal study that was sponsored by AAAS, co-sponsored by AGU, the American Geophysical Union, and a couple of other partners, looking at the public perception of science.

What it has shown over the past recent years, is that, at least in the US, the public perception of science is quite high. In fact, science as a whole, and scientists generally enjoy among the highest levels of trust among Americans. However, during times of economic distress, or economic pressure, respondents said that science funding would be the first thing that they would cut from the budget. So that's definitely a relevant and resonant and scientifically backed response to worrying and being concerned about that.

We've also been seeing that down the pipe. In higher education, I know that a lot of faculty lines are themselves being stressed and being removed from having funded positions. Of course, national science foundation grants are one of the main components of the ways that dissertation recipients get through their fieldwork and in writing up their dissertation, and that's also under stress.

Tanzina: Valorie, I'm curious, and also Dr. Rubin, I'd love to hear your thoughts as we close the segment here, but what's at stake here with the United States if we continue along this path, Valorie?

Valorie: For me, I feel, and for a lot of people who share this opinion, democracy, and our civic liberties are at stake. What's been going on in comment after comment and indeed, this administration has been reckless and selfish with their powerful positions. They put more people in harm's way that we know in advance were preventable, while proclaiming that they remain reliable and faithful to the best practices of science and those are just patently false and manipulates people's trust in science for sheer political rhetoric, and it puts more lives at risk than we've already lost.

Tanzina: Dr. Rubin what's at stake?

Dr. Rubin: I'm going to confine myself to the public health question. I hope that there's a vaccine, which is a miracle, and there could very well be, I'm optimistic, that gets us out of this problem and that at some point, late this year we might know that and next year, sometime it will be widely available, and this epidemic will end. This isn't the last epidemic, this is really a warning as to what's out there. We were completely unprepared and we remain in a position where we can't make an adequate response right now.

Without some changes to our thinking, fundamental changes to our thinking, we're going to get into this again, and the next epidemic could be far worse than this one. Public health is really important as a national security issue. Unless we have some changes in thinking, I think we're going to continue to be at risk.

Tanzina: Dr. Eric J. Rubin is the editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. Valorie Aquino is a co-founder of the National March for Science and a researcher at the University of New Mexico. Thanks to you both for joining me.

Dr. Rubin: Thanks, Tanzina.

Valorie: Thank you so much.

Tanzina: If you work in science or medicine, we wanted to know how you were feeling about this moment. Have you felt motivated or pressured to become more political under this administration?

Neil: This is Neil from Oak Hill, Ohio. I was a paramedic for over 20 years and then I transitioned to in-hospital work. I did notice that I have become very more aware of politics and situations in the world right now. However, I don't push my politics on anyone else. I'm just much better informed I guess.

Caller: I worked in science and medicine. I worked for a pharmaceutical manufacturing company. No, I haven't felt any need to become more political under Trump because of the COVID crisis, but I am more politically active under Trump because he is so utterly opposed to everything I believe in.

Barbara: Technology and scientific breakthroughs by Americans and immigrants have made us a global leader. My political choices are for those who want our legacy in innovation to continue. This is Barbara and I am in Silicon Valley, San Jose, California.

Joy: My name is Joy, I’m calling from Willits, California, and you can tell by my accent I'm not from here. I work at the bedside as a nurse. My patients ask me very frequently what brought me to California and I have come to the point where I say to them, "I'll be honest with you, it was because I had to leave the South when Trump was elected." That's what I say, I just feel so motivated to speak, to speak it right now when they ask.

When the New England Journal of Medicine came up with their article and put their article out, their editorial on 10-8, condemning the Trump Administration's pandemic response, that made it for me.

Tanzina: Thanks for sharing your thoughts on such an important conversation. You can always weigh-in, we listen to every call, even if we don't air everyone. Leave us a message at 877-8-MY-TAKE that's 877-869-8253.

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