Americans’ confidence in groups and institutions has turned downward compared with just a year ago. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, once seemingly buoyed by their central role in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, is now below pre-pandemic levels.
Overall, 29% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the best interests of the public, down from 40% who said this in November 2020. Similarly, the share with a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests is down by 10 percentage points (from 39% to 29%), according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The new findings represent a shift in the recent trajectory of attitudes toward medical scientists and scientists. Public confidence in both groups had increased shortly after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to an April 2020 survey. Current ratings of medical scientists and scientists have now fallen below where they were in January 2019, before the emergence of the coronavirus.
Scientists and medical scientists are not the only groups and institutions to see […]
I believe this was a long time coming..what with the Sackler family, the opioid crisis. I remember interviewing a highly ethical respected doc who was named head of the FDA and within a very short time was booted out. I also remember an investigative NYT journalist arriving in our offices to talk about using him and his years of research to do a movie along the lines of the big hit that exposed tobacco. He showed that docs rec’d. European vacations, big money and other gratuities. The intent being that they would overlook any questionable info. While I worked at UVa, I watched young women who looked like cheerleaders arrive once a week to tout the latest and greatest. The meeting were catered. The docs would lock the door.. The stories about damage done by the medical drug industries are endless and have been out there for years. I worked mainly in the Arthritis section and since I suffered at that time from severe RA and was already working on diet and Chinese medicine I was shocked to see that the docs told patients it was ok to drink coffee as much as they wanted. I knew that arthritis was not only auto immune, it was exacerbated by acidic foods and drinks. Since then alternative + healthy diets have taken larger space. And UVa began expanding their medical education.. but the industry is still riddled with greed. And the drug companies raked in big big bucks for those vaccines.
I agree with you, Sam. Greed destroys everything: CEO’s make big bucks which they do not work for; and Board members are in the same category, making dig bucks for doing nothing. There should be an upper limit on how much people and companies can make from their products which other people (who work for them) make.
This is excellent news! It demonstrates that the American Public is starting to understand how deep the corruption reaches. Our major academic research institutions are for profit operations flying under the guise of not for profit educational organizations. It’s not just science itself that Americans mistrust, but those scientists who ally with power for their own gain and the government’s agenda, regardless of what is in the taxpayer’s interest. The public sees how their dollars are spent for basic research which are then turned to private gain for corporations and they scientists they employ. None of this even touches upon the replication crisis occurring in many fields where public policy is driven upon shoddy data.