National Academy of Medicine
Virtual Event
As Prepared for Delivery
Thank you, Dr. Dzau, for that introduction and for your leadership at the National Academy of Medicine.
What a kind gesture electing Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Vivek Murthy to NAM just as I’m joining you today! But in all seriousness, we know their pedigrees and their commitment to the science, and I want to applaud them for their incredible work. The American people are lucky to have them and you on their side.
And thank you to everyone at NAM for inviting me here today and for the important work you’re doing at the intersection of public health and environmental well-being.
We meet here today at an inflection point in our history. And I’m not just talking about our fight against this pandemic.
Science itself is under attack.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been exposed to a wide range of misinformation about masks and social distancing, treatments, and vaccines.
We know that the misinformed are less likely to get vaccinated and more likely to risk contracting COVID-19. According to an Axios poll, nearly half of people who said they don’t trust the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) also said they’re not likely to get the vaccine.
A majority of unvaccinated adults (53%) actually believe the vaccine poses a bigger risk to their health than COVID-19.
Another recent poll showed that 95% of Americans believe misinformation is problem. 95%. And yet, only 20% of Americans believe they’ve spread misinformation.
By May of this year, 67% of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one COVID-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or were not sure of its veracity.
An analysis of millions of social media posts found that false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories. Another study showed that even brief exposure to misinformation made people less likely to want a COVID-19 vaccine.
This is about more than numbers. There are real, grieving families behind these devastating statistics. After one man -- an otherwise healthy 45-year-old father from Washington state – died of COVID-19, his children said, “We believe he was a victim of misinformation.” He would watch YouTube videos of right-wing conspiracy theories – people making millions off spouting lies.
One thing is clear: Lies can kill. Falsehoods carry consequences.
This has been a long time in the making. I’m sure I don’t have to remind of you of the “death panel” mania that overtook discussions of the Affordable Care Act. I was in Congress at the time. And at one point, nearly half of Americans said they believed the government would decide when to stop care for seniors.
Now I ask you: In the decade-plus since the ACA was passed, how many death panels have dictated your family’s elder care?
And it’s not just health care. It’s issues like climate change and disaster preparedness, too. In California, where we’ve seen communities burn to the ground from wildfires, some have advocated ideas like raking forest floors, even as experts say that misunderstands the science of wildfires. Or ideas like nuking hurricanes, which sounds like a bad science-fiction movie.
Misinformation was also rampant during the 2014 Ebola breakout. And persistent rumors about HIV/AIDS for decades have undermined efforts to reduce infection rates in the U.S.
If you separate fact from fear or fact from fiction – or fact from “alternative fact” – then the truth becomes clear.
Science can defend itself in a world of reason and evidence. But that’s not the world we live in today.
Of course, health misinformation is not new in the United States. We have a long history of fighting quackery, even at the highest levels of government.
When Joseph Lister presented his theory on antisepsis at the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia, even some doctors laughed at him.
When President James Garfield was shot, those caring for him gave him an infection that was worse than the actual bullet wound – because they didn’t believe in germs.
Abraham Lincoln himself suffered from mercury poisoning after taking what were called “blue pills.” Like countless others at the time, he was led to believe in junk science.
The difference is, these examples are from a century and a half ago. Now we know a lot more. And yet, we still have quacks pushing lies.
But what we’re seeing today isn’t just an attack on science. It’s an attack on scientists. On the very people who dedicate their lives to fact and truth. Who study, practice, hypothesize, and test to get a better understanding of the way our world works.
This isn’t the first time scientists themselves have been put under the proverbial microscope. We’re all familiar with the trials and tribulations of Galileo, Darwin, Newton, and others.
But in many ways, today’s assault on scientists is different from those of yesteryear, when it was harder to prove that the Earth was round, that gravity was real, that planets revolved around the sun, or that humans evolved from primates.
Today’s lies are tweeted and retweeted by the millions, posted and shared by friends and family, liked and subscribed to by anyone with a WiFi connection.
They’re photoshopped and deep-faked to hook their audience. They appeal to emotion, not reason. To the amygdala, not the cerebrum. They prey on fear and anxiety, and they erode people’s trust in the very reality before their eyes – that people are dying every single day from this virus even when we have safe and effective vaccines to stop it.
They say a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. Well, the lies are piling up. The reactions are getting serious, troubling, and even violent. And the truth is still stuck tying its laces.
In this moment, our leaders -- the public servants in office and the women and men of science and medicine -- must decide: science or lies, medicine or myth, fact or fiction, fight or flight.
I choose fight.
At HHS, we’re working with partners to spread the word about the importance of vaccination in school-aged children and teachers.
We have a public education campaign underway that involves lifting up the voices of 14,000-plus trusted messengers in communities across the country to remind everyone possible: vaccines are safe and effective.
Under the Action Plan, we’re in the process of requiring our entire federal staff to be fully vaccinated. We’re also requiring the nearly 300,000 educators at Head Start programs to be vaccinated.
We’ve invested billions to scale up screening in schools and underserved populations, and to expand mental telehealth services for pediatric care, because we know this pandemic has had devastating consequences on our kids’ mental health.
We are also following through on President Biden’s commitment to tackle our nation’s climate crisis and building on the work that I started as Attorney General of California to advance environmental justice.
That’s why in August, I was proud to announce that HHS is establishing the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE).
This is the first office of its kind at the national level to address climate change and health equity.
This is what leadership grounded in facts and science looks like.
This is just a snapshot of our efforts. And as Secretary, I haven’t been content to simply view this work from the Humphrey Building.
Over the past year, I’ve traveled the country to engage communities directly. I’ve met parents and teens in Georgia, visited with tribal leaders in Seattle and farmworkers in the Central Valley. I met with faith leaders in Oklahoma, families in Dallas, and health workers at hospitals in New Orleans. And I led a surge response team of HHS, CDC, and FEMA staff at testing sites in Las Vegas.
I’ve seen firsthand the dedication of our frontline workers, the compassion of our medical professionals, and the resilience of our people. They are counting on us to fight this misinformation head on.
They are counting on us to fight lies and save lives. I hope you will continue to join me in this effort. Together, we can make sure science wins the day.
Thank you.
