RFK Jr is America’s Lysenko
In the early years of the USSR, Soviet genetics was internationally recognized. Then along came Trofim Lysenko, an agronomist who convinced Stalin that he could bypass the laborious genetics of plant breeding to develop strains of wheat through the transmission of acquired traits. This fit well with the Soviet philosophy that humanity could be transformed by politics.
Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics lost their jobs*. Lysenkoism contributed to famines that killed millions of people in the USSR and the Peoples Republic of China.
For decades, the US has led the world in the development of vaccines. Smallpox has been eliminated because of vaccines, and polio was well on the way to being eliminated when RFK Jr, a decades-long anti-vaxxer, convinced Trump that he could bypass the laborious process of vaccination against preventable diseases and replace it with diet. This fit well with the GOP philosophy that science could be transformed by right-wing mythology.
American scientists who refuse to renounce vaccination have lost their jobs. Trumpism is contributing to increased incidence of measles and mumps, and increased barriers to COVID vaccination in the US.
Now, Florida has abandoned mandatory vaccines for deadly childhood diseases like whooping cough and polio. How many Americans will be sacrificed by RFK Jr and his anti-science sycophants before the nation comes to its senses and repudiates this dangerous man and his dangerous agenda?
*Many were imprisoned. Some died.
Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics lost their jobs*. Lysenkoism contributed to famines that killed millions of people in the USSR and the Peoples Republic of China.
For decades, the US has led the world in the development of vaccines. Smallpox has been eliminated because of vaccines, and polio was well on the way to being eliminated when RFK Jr, a decades-long anti-vaxxer, convinced Trump that he could bypass the laborious process of vaccination against preventable diseases and replace it with diet. This fit well with the GOP philosophy that science could be transformed by right-wing mythology.
American scientists who refuse to renounce vaccination have lost their jobs. Trumpism is contributing to increased incidence of measles and mumps, and increased barriers to COVID vaccination in the US.
Now, Florida has abandoned mandatory vaccines for deadly childhood diseases like whooping cough and polio. How many Americans will be sacrificed by RFK Jr and his anti-science sycophants before the nation comes to its senses and repudiates this dangerous man and his dangerous agenda?
*Many were imprisoned. Some died.
The damage done by abandoning genetic science lasted long after Lysenko and Stalin passed from the scene. By then the USSR was so far behind, and the scientific establishment was so crippled by the loss of its best minds, that Soviet genetic science took decades to even begin to recover.
By the time Trump and RFK Jr are gone, the damage to US medical research from disrupted research will be huge, and many of our best scientists will be settled in new careers in Canada or Europe or Israel or wherever they could get funding during the Trump era. And the pace of global scientific progress is much faster now. The US may never catch up with the rest of the developed world again after this.
@Infidel,
The damage was certainly lasting. That said, I was hosted as a speaker in 1998 and again in 2003 at the Institute for Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Genetics was certainly alive and well.
In the case of Lysenko, geneticists were not only fired and disgraced, but they were imprisoned and executed. So far, that hasn’t happened here.
Stalin was in power for about 25 years. Trump has 3.5 years left. Stalin was around 50 years old when he consolidated power. Trump is 79. He won’t be around in 25 years. Depend on it.
I don’t want to exaggerate the comparisons, but the trends are the same. The institutional damage caused by Trump and RFK Jr. may well be matched or exceeded by the number of Americans who will die from preventable diseases.
What Trump and RFK Jr are doing to American public health is depraved, just like what Lysenko did to Soviet agriculture. That’s my point.
Infidel:
I do not know your age. I am in my seventies. I am aging out of this calamity called Tr__p. Much of his being rests with us. We knew better. Many of us were taken in by a huckster and those very same people are paying a price now. Many of us did not vote.
Yes, medical research is disrupted by his actions. He gave Robert the power to do so. The same research that created Rituxan and N-Plate both of which works for me will go away. We will go backwards.
Unfortunately, we (I) are leaving a nation and economy more worse off than what we were given. The reversals he has made will take a decade or so to put back into place. Much of what was put in place took years to create due to political influences. And he does it from the presidency which would not have occurred with past presidencies.
You are very correct. The nation will lose human technology to other more favorable nations towards them. I really can not add more to what you have said. Thank you for your comment.
Joel, I think your post should appear in every major newspaper in the country. I too have thought that RFK Jr. could end up in the pantheon of mass killers and Stalin was number 1 on my list–not for the mass murder which he also committed but for the mass starvation he caused. I did not know the bit about genetic research. Your tying it into the brain drain which is occurring is also important. I think the historical antecedent is Hitler’s Germany where the Jewish scientists fled and ultimately developed the atomic bomb in this country– before anybody else. We can all debate whether dropping two of them on Japan was necessary, but I am sure glad that Hitler did not get it first because I have never been able to speak German. I do wonder if medical tourism to Canada and the EU is about to explode.
@Terry,
Don’t know about medical tourism, but my daughter and her family are moving to Canada next spring because of Trump.