Brazilian scientists are in danger and no one is doing anything about it

Brazilian scientists are in danger and no one is doing anything about it

In July 2020, when the horrific coronavirus pandemic was just beginning to engulf Brazil, I took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro to do some reporting.

I stopped by an open-air pop-up market in the seaside neighborhood of Copacabana and talked to people shopping for produce during the ongoing lockdown.

“Do you know the name of a famous Brazilian scientist?” I asked people as they passed by.

At the time, President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain and often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” was in full swing against science. Bolsonaro has sought to prevent state governors from adhering to lockdown protocols, promoting fake treatments and persecuting researchers who prove him wrong.

I wonder how much Brazilians care about science when we need it the most.

Of the dozen or so people I spoke to on the streets of Rio that day, only one knew a famous Brazilian scientist.

A young woman with glasses who was too embarrassed to tell me her name because she couldn’t think of a scientist, because she was a public school teacher, told me, “Well, there’s that vaccine expert, right? I forgot. What’s his name?”

She was referring to Oswaldo Cruz, the world-renowned Brazilian epidemiologist who founded Fiocruz, one of the world’s leading public health institutions. Most Brazilians are unaware that our country has internationally recognized research centers.

Brazil has one of the largest public health care systems in the world, and most of its top scientific institutions are funded by the government.

In fact, the internationalized state of São Paulo funds Butantan Institute, One of the most famous science centers in the world. Sao Paulo Governor João Doria has often touted Brazil as one of the top four vaccine producers in the world and the largest in Latin America.

Instead of celebrating these feats, President Bolsonaro has gone to great lengths to discredit science over the past two years.

In 2021, I spent nine months collecting persecution stories for a podcast published by Brazilian investigative news agency Agencia Publica about the scientists Bolsonaro and his followers targeted for their research. My findings were grim: Scientists across Brazil were fired, received death threats, or had to flee the country to keep themselves safe.

But since we grew up with football players rather than scientists as role models, it’s no surprise that most Brazilians have not come forward to defend the researchers under attack.

To make matters worse, Bolsonaro has made his anti-science stance an important pillar of public policy.

In March 2020, I listened to the President’s speech on national television discussing the pandemic. Bolsonaro downplayed the seriousness of the situation with his stiff military demeanor, calling the virus a “little flu” and asking local governors to oppose the lockdowns recommended by the World Health Organization.

The former Army captain even brought the virus to the United States early in the pandemic. Several people in Bolsonaro’s entourage later tested positive for the virus after Bolsonaro went on holiday to Mararago with his idol, Donald Trump, for the weekend.

Frustrated by Bolsonaro’s disdain for compliance with the protocol, many doctors and scientists on the government’s coronavirus response team have either been fired or fired.

Epidemiologist Julio Croda, my source at the Ministry of Health, resigned because Bolsonaro sidelined his colleagues and refused to listen to staff scientists. A total of three health ministers have stepped down or been fired since the pandemic began.

Perhaps most shocking, Bolsonaro has been promoting quack COVID treatments like hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial pill that has not been proven effective against the coronavirus.

Trump also praised the drug, but Bolsonaro even spent $16 million on what he called an “early treatment kit.” The pack, marketed as a treatment for the initial symptoms of the coronavirus, includes antimalarial pills and other medicines such as ivermectin, which is used to treat lice.

They were persecuted when internationally renowned Brazilian epidemiologist Marcos Lacerda and his team became the first in the world to demonstrate that high doses of hydroxychloroquine can cause arrhythmias. The president’s son, Senator Eduardo Bolsonaro, blame the researchers are left-wing extremists and say their study “killed 11 people after giving patients an extraordinary dose.” None of this is true.

What happened next is distressing. For months, Lacerda and his team received death threats via social media and phone calls. As lead researcher, Lacerda has been bombarded with lawsuits brought by far-right politicians. Things got so heated that he had to commute with bodyguards.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Scientist after scientist told me they lived in fear. Brazil’s NASA INPE chief Ricardo Galvão has been fired after Bolsonaro publicly slammed his release of data showing an increase in deforestation in Brazil. Amazon. As the list gets bigger, people get together to form Ayer Network, Support group for under attacked Brazilian researchers.

Still, in lieu of all this, the Brazilian public remains incredibly silent. I think it’s because, culturally, we don’t see science as one of Brazil’s highest achievements.

Growing up in Brazil, I wasn’t taught to worship doctors like Emilio Ribas who made huge strides in preventing yellow fever. Two years ago, when Jaqueline Goés de Jesus, a black female scientist, led the genome sequencing of Brazil’s first variant of COVID-19, she was also not known as a national hero.

Our president has only made it harder for Brazilians to discover the value of science since the pandemic began. While Brazil’s thriving scientific community is vital to our country’s economic development, Bolsonaro is holding us back by persecuting the researchers who have made great strides for our country.

Unless we create a culture that loves and protects its scientists, Brazil risks losing the world-renowned public health and research institutions that should be considered our greatest national treasures.

Mariana Simões is a freelance journalist from Brazil and a graduate student at Columbia Journalism School.