Dr. Zachary Rubin

RFK Jr.: “There’s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Field Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”

There are serious discussions to have about instability, extremism, educational access, and barriers to research, but dismissing an entire people’s intellectual achievements is neither accurate nor constructive.

RFK Jr.: “There’s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Field Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”

The reports surrounding a possible plague-related laboratory incident in Russia have sparked plenty of speculation, conspiracy theories, and accusations of a cover-up. However, here’s something we need to remember: Skepticism is not equal to evidence!

A lack of information is not proof of a conspiracy. Suspicion is not confirmation, and speculation should never be presented as established fact. We need to distinguish between what we know, what we don’t know, and what the evidence actually supports.

The reports surrounding a possible plague-related laboratory incident in Russia have sparked plenty of speculation, conspiracy theories, and accusations of a cover-up. However, here’s something we need to remember: Skepticism is not equal to evidence!

We’re in the worst measles outbreak in 35 years, and RFK Jr. tells the anti-vaccine organization he formerly chaired, Children’s Health Defense: “The government is in many ways impervious to science, to facts, to change.”

I wish Erica Schwartz was more like Susan Monarez. You don’t have to agree with every decision Susan Monarez made to recognize something important: when she believed political pressure was threatening the scientific integrity of the CDC, she pushed back. That matters.

The CDC director should not be the person who makes inconvenient public-health data disappear because a political appointee doesn’t like it. The job is to protect the scientific integrity of the agency, even when doing so puts your own job at risk.

I wish Erica Schwartz was more like Susan Monarez. You don’t have to agree with every decision Susan Monarez made to recognize something important: when she believed political pressure was threatening the scientific integrity of the CDC, she pushed back. That matters.

Now we learned that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. asked current CDC Director Erica Schwartz to remove references to 2 PA measles deaths from the CDC’s online tally after questioning whether measles contributed to those deaths, even though CDC staff accepted PA’s characterization of them as measles-related.

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I know some of you are frustrated that I’ve been posting about Dr. Anthony Fauci. I understand why. The pandemic was painful, and people have strong feelings about the decisions that were made. Reasonable people can disagree about many of those decisions.

At the same time, I worry that focusing all of our attention on one individual distracts us from bigger challenges facing public health and our healthcare system today, which are challenges that deserve thoughtful discussion and real solutions.

I know some of you are frustrated that I’ve been posting about Dr. Anthony Fauci. I understand why. The pandemic was painful, and people have strong feelings about the decisions that were made. Reasonable people can disagree about many of those decisions.

However, my posts aren’t about asking anyone to like or defend one person. They’re about defending principles that should apply equally to everyone.

My new book, Think Like a Doctor, is now available for preorder!

I am glad no secondary hantavirus cases occurred, but let’s keep perspective: this was a limited exposure event involving a relatively small number of people under close monitoring.