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When Science Is Silenced


What Paul Offit’s Removal Says About Power, Politics, and the People

The sudden removal of Dr. Paul Offit from the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, VRBPAC, is not just a bureaucratic reshuffle. It is a political act, an ideological maneuver that reveals the dangerous intersection of corporate interests, populist demagoguery, and the weakening of public health infrastructure in the United States.

As a socialist, I cannot watch this development without seeing the broader pattern: the systematic dismantling of science-based governance in favor of reactionary politics and opportunistic populism. Offit, one of the few outspoken defenders of vaccines and a consistent critic of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine crusade, is being sidelined precisely because his expertise threatens the narrative of those in power. His voice is inconvenient for an administration eager to replace scientific rigor with spectacle and ideology.

Science vs. Ideology

This is not about one doctor losing a committee seat. It is about a shift in who gets to shape the rules of public health. The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee exists to scrutinize evidence, to weigh data, to ensure that decisions about vaccines are grounded in reality rather than rumor. Removing experienced experts like Offit is a clear attempt to weaken this process. It is the age-old strategy of the ruling class when expertise clashes with their agenda: silence the experts, install loyalists, and declare that “the people” have spoken.

But let’s be clear. This is not “the people.” This is not democracy. This is authoritarian populism dressed up as grassroots authenticity. It is a ruling elite using anti-establishment rhetoric while serving their own political survival. They replace public health with political theater, risking millions of lives in the process.



The Socialist Lens

From a socialist perspective, this struggle over vaccines is not simply about health. It is about power. Who has the authority to define truth? Who controls the institutions that decide whether a vaccine is safe, whether a drug should be approved, whether a public health emergency is real? In a capitalist society, these institutions are always under pressure from private interests—pharmaceutical corporations seeking profit, politicians seeking donations, media conglomerates seeking clicks.

But now, under the influence of reactionary populists like RFK Jr., the pressure is compounded by ideological warfare. Expertise itself becomes suspect. Evidence is treated as elitism. Science is painted as a conspiracy. And into this void steps a dangerous new form of governance—where truth is not discovered through collective reason, but dictated by whoever can shout the loudest, spread the most viral lie, or appeal to the rawest fear.

Socialism insists that public health must be public. It cannot be subordinated to private profit, nor can it be hijacked by demagogues. The removal of Offit is one more example of how capitalist and populist forces converge to undermine the collective good.



Attacking the Infrastructure of Trust

When the government purges experts, it does not only remove individuals; it erodes trust in the very infrastructure of public health. Committees like VRBPAC exist to show the public that vaccine approval is not arbitrary, that decisions are made with scientific transparency. By sidelining voices like Offit’s, the state signals that loyalty to political power matters more than loyalty to evidence.

The working class will pay the price. Ordinary people—the very people who need vaccines, who rely on public hospitals, who cannot afford elite private care—are left with a weakened system.

The wealthy will always find a way to shield themselves. It is the poor, the workers, the marginalized who will be most vulnerable when vaccines are delayed, when outbreaks spread, when disinformation replaces public health education.



The Broader Assault

This is not an isolated case. It fits a wider pattern: the purge of CDC’s advisory committee, the removal of seasoned regulators, the dismantling of institutions that safeguard collective well-being. It is part of a deliberate weakening of the state’s protective role in order to empower corporations, political elites, and ideological hardliners.

We must see this as class struggle. The struggle over who defines science, who gets to govern public health, who decides whether vaccines are safe—this is a struggle over power in society. When experts like Offit are removed, the ruling class is not just “reshuffling personnel”; they are reshaping the very terrain of truth.



What We Must Demand

As socialists, we must demand that public health be shielded from political manipulation and corporate greed. Committees like VRBPAC must be strengthened, democratized, and made accountable not to politicians or corporations but to the people themselves.

This means:

  • Protecting Scientific Integrity: Scientists should not be dismissed for political convenience. Their expertise belongs to the public, not to the whims of whichever administration happens to be in power.
  • Democratizing Health Governance: Workers, patients, and communities should have representation in health decision-making. Public health cannot be left to elites—whether corporate or political.
  • Exposing Corporate Influence: We must reject both extremes—the denialism of anti-vaccine populists and the profiteering of pharmaceutical corporations. Both undermine collective well-being.
  • International Solidarity: The fight for science-based health policy is global. When the U.S. weakens its public health system, it signals to reactionary movements worldwide that ideology can trump science.



A Final Word

Paul Offit’s removal is not about Paul Offit. It is about a ruling class that fears truth, that fears evidence, that fears the collective intelligence of humanity when it refuses to bow before ideology.

This moment should remind us that science is never neutral in a capitalist society. It is either weaponized by the ruling class for profit and control, or it is defended as part of the collective struggle for human liberation.

We must stand with the scientists who speak truth, but more importantly, we must stand with the people who depend on that truth for their survival. Vaccines are not merely medical products; they are public goods, lifelines that protect workers, children, the elderly, and the vulnerable. Undermining them is an attack on the very fabric of collective care.

The socialist answer is clear: science and health must belong to the people. If we allow political opportunists to dismantle these structures, we will face not only new pandemics, but a deeper crisis of trust and solidarity. Our task is to resist, to defend public health as a common good, and to build a world where truth and care are not negotiable, but guaranteed.