冠状病毒大流行不可能被忽视，总统唐纳德·特朗普发现了一种新的箔片-在科学中。
关注科学家联盟备有证明文件的九个联邦机构11次表示特朗普政府对科学的攻击直接削弱了联邦政府对危机的反应，包括疾病控制和预防指导中心的停滞和改变COVID-19数据收集服务由卫生和公众服务部而不是疾病预防控制中心管理。
它cites特朗普政府自上任以来对科学发起了150多次攻击，从撤销气候变化保护措施到改变联邦网站上的科学内容。
“这不正常。该组织的研究分析师安妮塔·德西坎在一份报告中写道:“这是一种无视、排斥和审查科学家及其研究意见的恶劣模式。”blogpost星期一。“特朗普政府将决策从基于科学的决策转变为以牺牲我们所有人的利益为代价来优先考虑政治问题健康和安全。"
这个非盈利性的科学倡导组织认为，特朗普政府“故意无视科学”的例子从未像现在这样明显冠状病毒大流行。
德西坎补充说:“为了保护我们的生命，我们美国人民现在比以往任何时候都更需要不受限制地接触联邦科学家。”
白宫副新闻秘书莎拉·马修斯(Sarah Matthews)周四在接受ABC News采访时表示，特朗普“在整个危机期间一直按照他的顶级公共卫生专家的建议行事，他为拯救数百万人的生命做出的许多大胆的、数据驱动的决策就是明证。”
但是为了描绘一幅他的政府处理冠状病毒大流行，总统已经削弱和排挤了国家的顶级健康专家，最近冠状病毒反应协调员Deborah Birx博士，在推特上批评她在她警告病毒“异常广泛”的第二天
特朗普自称的“战略”积极思考一些专家说:“这使他看不到面前严峻的现实，并迫使他破坏科学界。”
纽约医学院医学系主任尼尔·施卢格博士在接受美国广播公司采访时说，将支持羟氯喹和反屏蔽运动与现有的反暴力和否认气候变化的人联系起来，这种混杂的信息会导致对科学家的进一步不信任。
“出于各种原因，总有人不相信或不信任专家。...但这是一个不寻常的情况，当政府的一部分谁不知道这些事情的专业知识是促进一种观点，反对机构的影响，说:”“对于科学界来说，看到自己的可信度受到如此质疑，有点令人震惊。”
与事实不符
从大流行的早期开始，特朗普就坚持不懈地为自己应对危机的方法辩护，并提出了与大多数科学建议背道而驰的观点举行大型集会遍布全国兜售一种未经证实的药物的潜力注射漂白剂作为治疗这与他自己的卫生官员的数据和警告不一致。
现在，根据美国广播公司对COVID追踪项目的分析，随着30多个州的死亡人数增加，特朗普本周坚持反科学情绪，称“病毒正在消退”，“这种事情正在消失。”
美国国家过敏和传染病研究所所长安东尼·福西(Anthony Fauci)博士周一在哈佛大学公共卫生学院(Harvard School of Public Health)主办的一个公共论坛上说，“在这个国家有一种反科学的情绪，”就在上周，他告诉议员们，他不相信冠状病毒会消失，“因为它是一种高度可传播的病毒。”
当特朗普推动“曲速行动”在破纪录的时间内创造出一种病毒疫苗时，他可能正在为自己与科学挑战的另一场冲突做准备。他说在周四的一次电台采访中，疫苗有望在11月3日选举日左右问世。
这一时间表与公共卫生和疫苗专家所说的疫苗更有可能在2020年底或2021年初上市的说法相矛盾——即使疫苗获得批准，也存在分发的障碍。
华盛顿大学医学院的医学助理教授艾尔弗雷德·金(Alfred Kim)博士说:“这种疫苗实际上是一种更大的反思，反映了特朗普是如何更专注于结果，而不是通向结果的道路，并从这条道路中学习。”“这也给科学界带来了巨大的压力，当错误的预期被设定时，它就成了对公众的威胁。”
羟氯喹:特朗普的第一个“游戏规则改变者”
特朗普建立错误预期的倾向在他对神奇药物的不懈追求中显而易见。
与美国食品和药物管理局和整个医学界相矛盾的是，特朗普继续兜售羟氯喹的承诺，这是一种仍未证实可治疗COVID-19的药物。
这种抗疟疾药物曾在3月份被特朗普作为“游戏规则改变者”引入，后来他说这是一种预防药，现在已获得紧急授权使用被食品和药物管理局撤销六月之前引用“严重的心律问题和其他安全问题。”
特朗普没有承认新的科学信息，而是加倍了他的支持，并声称这种药物只是因为针对他的政治而名誉扫地。
周一，特朗普在推特上发布了一段宣传这种药物的误导性视频，一周后，他对白宫记者说:“羟基得到了巨大的支持，但在政治上它是有毒的，因为我支持它。”
然而，冠状病毒检测沙皇布雷特·吉洛雷上将，讲述美国全国广播公司周日表示，他“不能推荐”羟氯喹在这个时候，是时候“继续前进。”
和福西说美国广播公司的“早安美国”上个月说，“压倒性的，流行的临床试验，已经看到羟基氯喹的功效，表明它是无效的冠状病毒疾病。”
金说，关于羟氯喹，“有这种需要，能够抓住一些希望，有一种疗法，所以我们可以说，我们可以克服这个问题。”
他补充说:“但事实是，由于我们一开始对COVID了解不多，任何结论，尤其是早期的结论，都应该带着相当大的怀疑。”
削弱科学家
尽管特朗普经常在科学问题与他自己的世界观相矛盾时提出异议，但随着他推动“再次开放美国”的后果受到质疑，他最近加大了攻击力度。
面对众议院议长南希·佩洛西越来越多的批评，冠状病毒应对协调员黛博拉·比克斯博士打破特朗普的沉默，对病例的重新出现进行了严峻的评估有线电视新闻网星期天，他说这种流行病在农村和城市地区都“非常普遍”。
她还对在社区高度分散的地区开设学校表示担忧，因为特朗普继续推动全面的面对面教学。特朗普第一次抨击了Birx的表现，他在推特上写道，“为了反击南希，黛博拉上钩了，打了我们——可悲。”
疯狂的南希·佩洛西说了黛博拉·比克斯博士的坏话，因为她对我们在抗击中国病毒(包括疫苗和治疗)方面所做的出色工作过于乐观。为了对付南希，黛博拉上钩了&打了我们。可悲。
——唐纳德·特朗普2020年8月3日
总统在周一晚上拨回了电话，在新闻发布会上说他“非常尊重”Birx，但不会回答他对病毒的描述是否与特勤组医生的描述一致的后续问题。
《华盛顿邮报》据报告的就在同一天，比尔在椭圆形办公室花的时间在最近几周有所减少。
在特朗普在比尔克斯面前翻脸之前，他和白宫助手似乎在削弱福西，特朗普甚至在多个场合转发了“开除福西”的标签
特朗普曾公开并多次表示，他不同意这位医生对该国检测能力和自3月份以来艾滋病传播前景的直言不讳的评估。7月，特朗普开始说福西“犯了很多错误”，错误地指责他政府在面具问题上的态度转变。
特朗普的一名高级助手甚至发表了一篇论坛版在《今日美国》杂志上，该国传染病领域的顶尖专家被斥为自他们相遇以来从未对过任何事情。
忽视科学的后果
阿肯色大学医学院的医学教授兼副院长萨拉·塔里克博士告诉美国广播公司新闻，她担心科学正处于一个关键时刻。
塔里克说:“我非常担心，我们的国家正在把数据和推理、科学和统计靠边站，因为我们美国人对待逆境的方式是个人主义的。”“我们的自我自由意识很强，但我担心正是这些让我们惊叹的东西——我们的自由，我们的个人主义，我们的自由——在这种情况下，真的在伤害我们。”
福西告诉五点三十八分上个月，该国的超党派环境使得抑制病毒变得更加困难:“我认为你必须承认这是事实。”
他说:“从政治的角度来看，你必须戴上眼罩，捂住耳朵，才能认为我们现在生活的社会不是一个非常分裂的社会。”“你必须假设，如果没有这样的分歧，我们会有一个更协调的方法。”
在过去的两个月里，像Fauci和Birx这样的特别工作组医生主要依靠有线新闻采访和专家小组直接向公众提供最新消息，而不是在简报会上支持总统。
施洛伊格博士认为，科学家也有责任学会如何更好地向公众传播信息，而不是依赖与政治交织在一起的政府机构或媒体来准确传递事实。
他说:“科学界将不得不找出如何——如何更好地与公众沟通，以及如何让人们相信，坦率地说，专业知识是存在的。”
With string of attacks on doctors and experts, Trump takes aim at science: ANALYSIS
With the novelcoronaviruspandemic impossible to ignore out of existence, PresidentDonald Trumphas found a new foil -- in science.
The Union of Concerned Scientists hasdocumented11 times across nine federal agencies when it says the Trump administration's attacks on science have directly undermined the federal government's response to the crisis, including thestalling of Centers of Disease Control and Prevention guidanceandchanging COVID-19 data collection servicesto be housed under the Department of Health and Human Services instead of the CDC.
Itcitesmore than 150 attacks on science by the Trump administration since he took office from rolling back climate change safeguards to altering scientific content on federal websites.
"This is not normal. This is an egregious pattern of ignoring, sidelining, and censoring the voices of scientists and their research," wrote the organization's research analyst Anita Desikan in ablogpostMonday. "By shifting policymaking away from science-based decisionmaking, the Trump administration is prioritizing political concerns at the expense of all ourhealthand safety."
The nonprofit science advocacy organization argues there has never been a clearer example of the Trump administration's "willful disregard of science" than with thecoronaviruspandemic.
"To protect our very lives, it is more important than ever that we, the American people, have unfettered access to federal scientists," Desikan added.
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, when presented with the organization's charge, said in a statement to ABC News on Thursday that Trump has "always acted on the recommendations of his top public health experts throughout this crisis as evidenced by the many bold, data-driven decisions he has made to save millions of lives."
But in an effort to paint a rosy picture of his administration's handling of thecoronaviruspandemic, the president has undermined and sidelined the nation's top health experts, most recentlycoronavirusresponse coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx,criticizing her in a tweeta day after she warned the virus is "extraordinarily widespread."
Trump's self-described strategy of "positive thinking" is preventing him from seeing the grim reality before him and is forcing him to undermine the scientific community, some experts say.
Relating pro-hydroxychloroquine and anti-masking movements to existing anti-vaxers and climate change deniers, Dr. Neil Schluger, chairman of the department of medicine at New York College of Medicine, told ABC News the mixed messaging can lead to a further mistrust of scientists.
"There's always been people, for all sorts of reasons, who don't believe or trust experts. ... But it's an unusual circumstance when parts of the government who don't have expertise about these things are promoting a point of view that is against the agencies weighing in," Schluger said. "It is a bit of a shocking moment for the scientific community to see its credibility questioned in the way it is."
At odds with the facts
From the early days of the pandemic, Trump has relentlessly defended his approach to the crisis and presented ideas that fly in the face of most scientific recommendations -- fromholding mega-ralliesacross the country andtouting an unproven drug, to suggesting the potential ofinjecting bleach as therapy-- that were at odds with the data and warnings of his own health officials.
Now, as deaths increase in more than 30 states according to an ABC analysis of the COVID Tracking Project, Trump is sticking to an anti-science sentiment saying this week the "virus is receding" and that "this thing is going away."
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a public forum hosted by Harvard School of Public Health on Monday "there is a degree of anti-science feeling in this country," on the heels of telling lawmakers just last week that he does not believe the coronavirus will disappear "because it's such a highly transmissible virus."
As Trump pushes "Operation Warp Speed" to create a viral vaccine in record-breaking time, he may be setting himself up for another conflict with the challenges of science. Hesaidin a radio interview on Thursday that a vaccine could be expected right around Election Day, which is on Nov. 3.
This timeline contradicts public health and vaccine experts saying that a vaccine will more likely be available at the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021 -- and even when a vaccine is approved, there's the hurdle of distributing it.
"The vaccine is really a larger reflection about how Trump is more concentrated on the outcomes, rather than the path to the outcome and learning from that path," said Dr. Alfred Kim, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. "It also puts massive pressures on the scientific community and becomes a danger to the public when false expectations are set."
Hydroxychloroquine: Trump's first 'game changer'
Trump's tendency to set up false expectations is clear in his persistent push for a miracle drug.
Contradicting the Food and Drug Administration and the medical community at-large, Trump continues to tout the promise of hydroxychloroquine, a drug still unproven to treat COVID-19.
The anti-malaria drug, which Trump introduced in March as a "game changer" and later said he took as a prophylactic, had its emergency authorization userevoked by the FDAin June beforeciting"serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues."
Rather than acknowledging the new scientific information, Trump has doubled down his support and claims the drug was only discredited because of politics against him.
"Hydroxy has tremendous support, but politically it is toxic, because I supported it," Trump told White House reporters Monday, a week after tweeting a misleading video promoting the drug, which was later flagged by Twitter for disinformation and taken down.
Coronavirus testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir, however,toldNBC on Sunday that he "can't recommend" hydroxychloroquine at this time and that it was time to "move on."
AndFauci toldABC's "Good Morning America" last month that "the overwhelming, prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease."
Kim said with regard to hydroxychloroquine that "there was this need to be able to grab onto some hope that there is a therapy, so we can say we can overcome this problem."
"But the reality was, since we didn't know very much about COVID in the first place, that any conclusions, especially early on, should have to be taken with a substantial amount of skepticism," he added.
Undermining the scientists
While Trump has regularly taken an issue with science when it contradicts his own world view, he has recently ramped up his attacks as the consequences of his push toward "Opening Up America Again" have come into question.
In the face of growing criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx broke from Trump by offering a grim assessment of the resurgence of cases toCNNSunday, saying the pandemic is "extraordinarily widespread" in rural as well as urban areas.
She also expressed concern at opening schools in areas of high community spread as Trump continues his push for full in-person instruction. Trump slammed Birx's performance for the first time, tweeting, "in order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait and hit us -- pathetic."
So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)August 3, 2020
The president dialed it back by Monday evening, saying in a press conference he has "a lot of respect" for Birx but would not answer a follow-up question on whether his characterization of the virus aligned with that of the task force doctor.
The Washington Postreportedon the same day that the amount of time Birx spends in the Oval Office has decreased in recents weeks.
Before Trump reversed on Birx, he and White House aides appeared to undermine Fauci, with Trump even retweeting on multiple occasions the hashtag "Fire Fauci."
Trump has openly and repeatedly said he disagrees with the doctor's blunt assessments of the country's testing capability and outlook of the spread since March. In July, Trump started saying Fauci "made a lot of mistakes," falsely blaming him for the government's reversal on masks.
One top Trump aide even published anop-edin USA Today trashing the nation's top expert on infectious diseases as never having been right on anything since they met.
The consequences to sidelining science
Dr. Sara Tariq, a professor of medicine and associate dean at the University of Arkansas Medical School, told ABC News that she's concerned science is being sidelined at a critical time.
"I'm very concerned that our nation is sidelining data and reasoning and science and statistics in light of the sort of individualistic approach to how we as Americans deal with adversity," Tariq said. "Our sense of self-liberty is very strong, but I worry that it's those same things that make us amazing -- our liberty, our individualism, our freedom -- in this situation, are really harming us."
Fauci told FiveThirtyEightlast month the country's hyper-partisan environment has made it more difficult to suppress the virus: "I think you'd have to admit that that's the case."
"You have to be having blindfolders on and covering your ears to think that we don't live in a very divisive society now, from a political standpoint," he said. "You'd have to make the assumption that if there wasn't such divisiveness, that we would have a more coordinated approach."
Task force doctors like Fauci and Birx have largely resorted to cable news interviews and expert panels to provide updates directly to the public for the past two months, as opposed to flanking the president at briefings.
Dr. Schluger argues there's also a responsibility that falls on scientists to learn how better to disseminate information to the public themselves and not rely on government agencies or media, intertwined in politics, to relay the facts accurately.
"The scientific community is going to have to figure out how -- how to communicate better with the general public and how to convince people that, frankly, there is such a thing as expertise," he said.
