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13 Oct 2022
DOI: 10.1126/science.adf3072
H. HOLDEN THORP
When the advocacy group America’s Frontline Doctors appeared on the steps of the United States Supreme Court in 2020, falsely stating that hydroxychloroquine was a cure for COVID-19, their pronouncement was virally shared by right-wing media and soundly debunked by medical academicians. A year later, one of these frontliners, Joseph Ladapo, became the surgeon general of Florida and a faculty member at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He has continued to spread dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 while his academic colleagues are shamefully silent.
Many assumed that Ladapo’s faculty appointment was the result of political pressure by the university’s administration as it aimed to please Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. It was unsurprising that anti-vax DeSantis wanted a surgeon general with anti-science views. But it was shocking that the medical school accepted Ladapo as a colleague. Even more shocking was a statement from the university president in the Tampa Bay Times confirming that Ladapo was voted into his position by the faculty and approved through the usual procedures. Even Ladapo’s former supervisor at the University of California, Los Angeles, declined to recommend him for the position, considering his approach to COVID-19 so dangerous as to violate the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. ...
This raises the question of what responsibility the scientific community has to condemn its members when they enable the spread of misinformation. ...
It’s easy to blame the politicians, right-wing cable TV hosts, and podcast hucksters for spreading misinformation. But is it defensible to blame these folks without also acknowledging that unchallenged members of the scientific community are making it possible for them to sow this doubt? Until the scientific community deals with misinformation from within, it cannot expect to deal with it from without.
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