Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

When politics and medical science intersect, there can be much debate. Sometimes anecdotes or hearsay are misused as evidence to support a particular point. Despite these and other challenges, however, evidence-based approaches are increasingly used to inform health policy decision-making regarding causes of disease, intervention strategies, and issues impacting society. One example is the introduction of childhood vaccinations and the use of evidence-based arguments surrounding their safety.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

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In this Discussion, you will identify a recently proposed health policy and share your analysis of the evidence in support of this policy.

To Prepare:

Review the Congress website provided in the Resources and identify one recent (within the past 5 years) proposed health policy.
Review the health policy you identified and reflect on the background and development of this health policy.

Post a description of the health policy you selected and a brief background for the problem or issue being addressed. Explain whether you believe there is an evidence base to support the proposed policy and explain why. Be specific and provide examples.

Even now, on the heels of the March for Science, we see some scientists hesitate to acknowledge the fact that science is political. Why wouldn’t they? We hold it up as the golden standard of objectivity, and synonymize it with words like ‘unbiased’ and ‘rational’, divorcing it from our human capriciousness. It’s quite natural to associate those notions with science. After all, you’d be hard pressed to find a more objective way of discovering the true nature of nature than by utilizing the power of the scientific method. But there’s an important distinction to be made between science and the scientific method.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

We use the scientific method to minimize bias and maximize objectivity. That is what’s rational and unbiased. The scientific enterprise, however, is not, and it’s nothing short of clinging to a fanciful myth to suggest that it ever was.

The reality is that engaging in scientific research is a social activity and an inherently political one. Imagine for a moment that you were going to start a new country today. There are things you’d be compelled to do by default; coming up with laws, for example. Funding science is not a default position when creating a country, it’s a decision we made once as a society, and continue to revisit as we make new policies and pass budgets. Science has been linked to the politics of society since the first person thought it was a good idea to do research, and then convinced their neighbors to give them money to do it.Scientific research doesn’t take place in a vacuum, it can only happen with society’s blessing. In this way science is a political institution de facto, governed by society and beholden to its political will.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Society controls who

But it’s not just the decision of whether or not to do science that’s political, society has also historically wielded the power to select who is permitted to become a scientist. We see, now, the sexist and racist obstructions that have allowed science to be dominated by white males. To many African Americans growing up in a prejudiced society, the path to becoming a scientist is among the paths of most resistance. In the case of women scientists, they could only work as “volunteer” faculty, leaving accolades for their male counterparts to collect. Extraordinary scientists like Esther Lederberg, who discovered the lambda bacteriophage, or Lise Meitner, who literally split the atom, were written out of the textbooks as they watched their male collaborators accept Nobel prizes without them. Such is also the story of Rosalind Franklin, a personal hero of mine, who changed the entire field of biology and was instrumental in discovering the double-helical structure of DNA that we know today.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

So, let’s keep in mind society’s ability to control who can become a scientist today. Moving towards Muslim bans and mass deportations not only weakens the talent we can import, but also robs many immigrants of the opportunity to fulfill their potential, and becoming the great contributors to society that they would have otherwise been. These actions threaten America’s leading position in research worldwide.

Society controls how

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There’s also the matter of society’s control over how science is conducted. Scientists, the normal humans that they are, are just as susceptible to being swept up by the cultural currents of their society as anyone else. There was a time when naturalists and anthropologists found that their ‘science’ justified the subjugation of what were considered inferior races. It wasn’t too long ago that the CIA funded mind control studies, subjecting unknowing patients to hallucinogenic drugs and harmful chemicals.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Lest we forget, the US Public Health Service also conducted the Tuskegee syphilis experiment which denied black men treatment for the disease in order to study its effects, despite its availability. The true nature of the experiment was kept secret from the subjects, and the public at large, and it spanned four decades. Studies like this were allowed to take place until society, through the vehicle of politics, decided to make a change (institutional review boards, etc.). These changes are ethical and moral ones, which place the well-being and safety of the individual over the need to answer a scientific question, and they should always take place with conversations that include scientists and lawmakers.

Keep this point in mind today, when you see trends of muting federally-employed researchers and preventing them from communicating their research to each other and to the public. Science and secrecy don’t work very well together.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

When we cast our vote in an election, part of what we’re doing is determining what will be prioritized in scientific research. Our elected officials control our money, and therefore control our scientific pursuits.

Society decides what kind of knowledge scientists are permitted to obtain and disseminate. The Vatican famously imprisoned Galileo and forced him to recant his scientific assertions that the Earth revolves around the Sun to avoid being burned at the stake. Under Stalin, the Soviet government supported the science of Lysenko, a pseudoscientist who rejected basic principles in biology, because his theories supported the principles of Marxism. This gave rise to Lysenkoism, a term used to reference the manipulation of the scientific process to achieve ideological goals. This term seems more and more relevant today.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Of course, control over what research scientists can conduct isn’t some arcane phenomenon that ended with the collapse of communism. Our elections decide our science. In 2001, President Bush imposed a ban on government funding for research on embryonic stem cells – halting the potential development of cure to scores of illnesses. He explained why he did this: “My position on these issues is shaped by deeply held beliefs”. Yet, the entire NIH budget didn’t suffer because of it. Funding was mostly allocated to research projects not related to stem cells or the environment. Priorities change elections. Likewise, during his terms, President Obama made it a priority to allocate funds for his favorite initiatives like translational science, the Precision Medicine Initiative, and the BRAIN Initiative. At the same time, NIH funding still fell short of what was requested from Congress during the course of his administration.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Today, the impact of elections on scientific research is palpable. Since his election, President Trump wasted no time before he began to launch attacks on clean air and water, on climate science, and on basic medical research. His proposed budget puts the public’s health in danger and slashes billions from the budgets of the NIH, the EPA, and other research institutions. Of course, it’s not only the president that we elect, but also Congress. A recent hearing on the scientific method and climate change devolved into an embarrassing public exercise in bickering and name-calling. In an intense exchange with climatologist Michael Mann, the Chairman of House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, no less, claimed that Science magazine was not an objective source.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

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An entanglement of society, politics, and science

In a thriving democracy, society forms politics, politics controls science, and science informs both society and politics. This isn’t new information, we all know it, yet some of us refuse to acknowledge the intimate interplay between society, politics, and science.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

It is fact that scientists are no strangers to activism; there’s plenty of precedent.

In the 1930s, scientists formed the Association for American Scientific Workers (AAScW) with the goal of inviting scientists to take moral stands and involve them directly in political and social issues. At the time, they resolutely stood against fascism and were instrumental in improving the quality of science reporting. In 1946, Albert Einstein weighed in on racism in America in his eloquent essay The Negro Question, which he characterized as a “disease of white people”. Not only that, but he also co-chaired an anti-lynching campaign. Even later, during the Cold War, scientists didn’t all shy away from political engagement. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) expressly opposed the war in the Vietnam, and Carl Sagan was a prominent voice on the dangers of nuclear proliferation during the Reagan era.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Today, John Holdren, Chief Science Advisor to President Obama, refreshingly urged scientists to tithe away ten percent of their time to public service and activism. I can’t remember the last time I heard a prominent scientist make such a statement.

In many ways, the line between science and politics, if there ever was a thing, is already blurred. There are scientific concepts, supported by a robust body of factual data, which are now inherently politicized, not because of a controversy in the scientific community, but because they threaten one party’s agenda. Think climate change or evolution.

The scientific method is a remarkable tool for creating verifiable information, always expanding the boundaries of our knowledge, and challenging our preconceived notions of what reality is. It’s an investigation we’re making into ourselves. We’ve decided to pool our money together and divvy it up to women and men who work tirelessly at the forefront of knowledge to discover more. We decided this because we realized that science helps us live longer, healthier, and more enriching lives.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

Science is under attack. We have been hearing this for decades, and it is truer now than ever before. The Trump administration’s attempt to obtain names of civil servants who attended climate-related meetings, the proposal to cut the EPA’s research office by up to 42 percent (including the entirety of the Global Change Research Program), the overturning of policies that are grounded in scientific consensus and vital to our survival, the disdain with which Trump and his allies dismiss scientific evidence — these all constitute clear assaults on science. In response, scientists are mobilizing to resist the Trump agenda, including with a proposed March for Science (previously called the Scientists’ March on Washington).

If we strike while the iron is hot, this could be an opportunity not just to defend some abstract understanding of “science” but also to advance a much stronger vision of how science can serve the common good. Scientists and others in the STEM fields should make lasting commitments to stand in solidarity with the people of the world most harmed not just by the Trump administration but also by oppression and exploitation in all their forms.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

The pursuit of scientific knowledge for the betterment of society has already long been shackled. Ask Marc Edwards. He’s the Virginia Tech professor who worked with people in Flint, Mich., to expose the poisoning of their water supply. In an interview titled “Public Science Is Broken,” Edwards criticized the “perverse incentives” offered to faculty members and the risks involved in challenging the people who provide research funding. He concluded, “We’re all on this hedonistic treadmill — pursuing funding, pursuing fame, pursuing h-index — and the idea of science as a public good is being lost.”

That treadmill is not the science we need to defend. Nor is the science that profits agribusiness at the expense of impoverished farmers, torments villagers with the threat of drone strikes or otherwise privileges the acquisition of knowledge beneficial to corporate and military interests above that which supports human needs.

We should also be wary of defending science when it is imagined to be the province solely of an expert elite. We can respect the knowledge science produces while recognizing the many people from diverse social backgrounds who contribute to it: not just Ph.D.s but also farmers, members of environmental justice communities, people living with illnesses under research and many others.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

The science we should rally to defend is that which people pursue with political consciousness for the benefits it brings to society and the planet. Lest anyone see that as too utilitarian, I would hasten to emphasize that charting the stars, learning the language of dolphins and pursuing a great many other subjects that bring us enlightenment qualify as benefiting society, provided we keep a sharp eye on how such knowledge is acquired and applied.

More than just defending such science, we must create a vibrant movement of STEM workers who see their survival and liberation as tied to the survival and liberation of poor people, people of color, people in the global South and others who are most vulnerable to the disasters our political and economic systems have produced.

This is hardly the first time scientists have organized to engage politically. In the United States today, the Union of Concerned Scientists is perhaps the most familiar organization that continues to promote, mainly through policy advocacy, what it calls “science for a healthy planet and a safer world.” Their work remains invaluable.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

However, we should also recognize other groups in different times and places, many of which have adopted more activist approaches and an analysis more sharply focused on wresting science from the oppressive power structures of capitalism, racism, sexism, militarism and imperialism, and placing it in the service of social needs. The British Science and Society Movement of the late 1930s and 1940s, the Indian Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad founded in 1962, and the Philippine AGHAM: Advocates of Science and Technology for the People founded in 1999 are just a few examples.

The United States once had its own activist science organization, called Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action, better known as Science for the People. The original organization formed in 1969 out of the rising tide of opposition to the war in Vietnam. Although it folded in 1989, its members carried their cause forward. Former SftP members have been involved in improving health and safety for factory workers, mobilizing farming communities to document and resist pesticide exposure, working with communities in Eritrea and Malawi to develop sustainable energy technologies, researching and promoting agro-ecological approaches to farming in the United States and Latin America, and many other areas of politically engaged, socially conscious science.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay

The Science for the People movement is currently being revitalized; chapters are now forming on campuses at Columbia, Cornell and Emory Universities; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Universities of Massachusetts at Amherst, Pennsylvania and Tennessee at Knoxville. Numbers will no do doubt swell as the Trump administration helps make the stakes clearer to STEM workers and students across the country and the world.

In times of political crisis, some people may be tempted to embrace science as an apolitical force of reason. While science does offer reason, it does not do so in a political vacuum. We have political choices to make. We have to decide what kind of science is worth making and worth fighting for. We have to make that science. And we have to fight for it.Politics And Medical Science Intersect Essay