Ciaran Williams

Science and Environment Editor

Last month, The Plant discussed what good can come when public policy and science work together. Focusing on the States Air Quality Agreement of 1991, we explored how Canadian and American lawmakers came together to regulate the emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, two primary pollutants that caused acid rain, ultimately reversing the problem.

A similar success story is the reversal of severe damage done to the ozone layer in the 1980s. Excess emissions of gases, called chlorofluorocarbons, created a massive hole in the oOzone layer, the part of the atmosphere responsible for absorbing a lot of the harmful radiation emitted by the sun. If it had been allowed to expand, the hole in the Ozone would have let in so much UV radiation that cancer rates would have skyrocketed. Recognizing the threat, scientists and policymakers from across the globe worked together to identify the cause, and passed the Montreal Protocol in 1987, banning chlorofluorocarbons and allowing the ozone layer to start healing.

The moral of these two stories is the same: to stress the necessary link between science and successful public policy. Recently, however, there’s been a concerning recent trend, which is a departure from science in public policy making. On March 7, the Washington Post reported that sources from inside the Center For Disease Control (CDC) had informed them that members of the Trump Administration, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., were encouraging them to begin studying a possible connection between vaccines and autism. The connection between the two has been disproven many times, with a consensus existing in the scientific community that there is, in fact, no link between the two. The doctor responsible for fabricating this myth, Andrew Wakefeld, was even disbarred from practicing medicine after being found guilty of professional misconduct for pushing this message, even after it was disproven. 

Despite this consensus, the Trump Administration is insisting that the CDC continue this investigation. Trump and Kennedy are encouraging this research because they have both publicly espoused the belief that vaccines are linked to autism, and are willing to spend government resources to prove themselves right. Aside from being a waste of the government’s time and resources (which is odd, given DOGE’s obsession with efficiency), this sets a dangerous precedent for the future. When leaders question the validity of scientific findings publicly, it breeds doubt towards science in the public, furthering misinformation and eroding confidence in the necessity of new scientific research. We shouldn’t live in a world where scientific fact can be brought into question this way just because politicians don’t want to believe the data. We should have a system in which science informs public policy, not one where politics informs science. 

While this case is concerning, it is just one such in a larger trend that has been taking place in recent years, seein in other events like Mark Carney’s willingness to walk back the carbon tax (although he will keep the corporate one in place), and Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency, encouraging fossil fuel companies to “drill, baby, drill.” As Lawmakers value the input of science less and less, especially on matters of the environment and public health, policy responses to the problems get weaker and weaker, putting lives at risk. The only good public policy is informed public policy. Simple as that.