Dr. Peter Hotez takes the war against science very personally

Michal Ruprecht

September 10, 2025 / 4:18 am

Peter Hotez is a prominent vaccine scientist. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a prominent vaccine skeptic. In 2023, podcast host Joe Rogan invited the two to debate — promising $100,000 to the charity of Hotez's choice as a payoff.

The debate didn't happen. (More on that later.) But the incident inspired Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, to write his sixth book, Science Under Siege . He co-authored it with Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

They examine the forces driving the anti-science movement — from supporters of the fossil fuel industry who deny climate change to soc

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