Remember When Experts Said 'Science Isn't Political?' They Were Lying

Remember that phrase? It was everywhere, for years, during theCOVID-19 pandemic. Here's are a few examples.

"Science is a self-correcting process," saidAnthony Fauciin an interview with CNN in 2020. "To make it a political issue is really unfortunate.Science is not political.Science is the pursuit of truth based on evidence."

Obviously, any criticism of someone at his level would amount to attacks on the very concept of unbiased science itself. "It’s very dangerous, because a lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. All of the things I’ve spoken about from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science," Fauci said in May 2021.

Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA, a Pfizer board member, and frequent guest on CNN and other media outlets, said something similar: "We need to make sure that the scientists are the ones speaking to the public... We need to protect the independence of the agencies.Science shouldn't be filtered through a political lens."

Former CDC director Rochelle Walensky repeatedly made exactly those types of arguments, telling her new employees in 2021 that "Our work must be guided byscience and data, not by politics.We will lead with the evidence, and we will be transparent about what we know and what we don't know."

She said the same to Congress later that same year: "I'm a scientist. I'm a physician. I'm a public health person. I believe that science needs to be the foundation of everything we do... it is not a political tool."

And here’s the most relevant example, fromDr. Francis Collins, who ran the National Institutes of Health for years. Another "Remember When Experts Said ‘Science Isn’t Political? They Were Lying" phony who rose to prominence duringCOVID…

"To have the science of a pandemic wrapped up in political campaign rhetoric is not a good place for science to be," he explained in a 2020 conversation with NPR. "Science is trying to find the truth. It’s trying to find the facts."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn-in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 03, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When he retired at the end of 2021, in his letter, he explicitly complained about the politicization of science.

Source: The Latest & Most Breaking News With OutKick