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. 

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