Experts Urge Action to Restore Public Faith in Science

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Why are scientific breakthroughs-from mRNA vaccines to AI-driven diagnostics-shadowed by an erosion of public trust? Why does misinformation seem to spread faster than peer-reviewed facts? And what can be done to restore faith in the scientific process-before troubling trends like stalled clinical trials and vaccine skepticism ignite a public health emergency?

Those were some of the questions that a panel of George Washington University faculty and alumni experts addressed at the Oct. 15 "Boosting Trust in Health Science" event, the first in a series of science conversations hosted by the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) and moderated by CCAS Dean Paul Wahlbeck.

In a lively discussion, panelists detailed the rigorous clinical oversight and review processes that govern both scientific research and drug development; warned of crises like the reemergence of diseases once thought eradicated; and offered suggestions for restoring faith in the scientific process amid a cultural environment hijacked by political polarization and social media misinformation.

"When that trust [in science] is eroded, it can slow down scientific progress and jeopardize public health," said Sheryl Jacobs, B.A. '91, M.P.H. '93, P. '24, former vice president for global development operations at the pharmaceutical firm Amgen and a member of the CCAS National Council of Arts and Sciences. A 30-year veteran of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, Jacobs emphasized that "maintaining public trust in science…is absolutely critical for the success and the integrity" of the clinical landscape.

Panelist David DeGrazia, the CCAS Elton Professor of Philosophy and a former senior research fellow at the National Institutes of Health, echoed the sentiment that "the importance of public trust in science" cannot be overstated-and that the implications of losing that confidence would be devastating.

"The sciences are our best way of finding out about empirical reality that can benefit our lives," he said.

In addition to DeGrazia and Jacobs, the panel included Professor of Chemistry and Department Chair Cynthia Dowd and Professor of Biology Aleksandar Jeremic.

The discussion opened by highlighting the robust review cycle that researchers and industries rely on during clinical trials and product development. Jeremic and Dowd explained the layers of oversight for ensuring accuracy and safety-from protocol design to intense statistical analysis to the scrutiny of regulatory agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Dowd, an associate editor at the journal "RSC Medicinal Chemistry," noted that scientific manuscripts aren't accepted until experts with a variety of specializations have checked their work. "If I submit a paper that has some synthetic chemistry experiments in it, an outside synthetic chemist who has no relationship to me looks at it," she said.

Indeed, Jeremic noted that even seemingly airtight research is constantly reevaluated by teams of experts. "If [the findings] are not verified…in a similar set of experiments or independent labs, then the idea basically disappears and does not hold ground in the scientific community," he said.

From the industry perspective, Jacobs stressed how multidisciplinary teams evaluate each phase of product development and clinical trials, including extensive interactions with regulatory agencies. "The clinical operations team is probably one of the most inspected functions in a company, right next to the manufacturing of the actual products," she said.

Trust gap

The panel also attempted to frame the extent of the public's perceived mistrust. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey showed that 73% of U.S. adults have confidence in scientists to act in the public's best interests. But that number is down 14 points since the early stages of the pandemic. The trust gap follows party lines with nearly four-in-10 Republicans (38%) saying they have little or no confidence in scientists while 86% of Democrats express at least a fair amount of confidence.

DeGrazia credited the sliding numbers to "an awareness of increasing political polarization…and there's also a massive spread of misinformation on the internet where quality control is almost impossible."

Among the sobering implications of science skepticism is the crippling influence it can have on clinical trial, Jacobs stressed. It is already difficult to persuade trial participants "to actually put a foreign substance in their body, be aware of some of the effects that it may have and be willing to have data collected," she noted. She cautioned that widespread mistrust may make it virtually impossible to find a wealth of trial volunteers. "Without the willingness of patients to enroll in those studies, we can't get those drugs to market and actually help the patients," she said.

Dowd also sounded the public health alarm by noting that measles and other diseases once considered eradicated are making a comeback as skepticism over vaccines and antibiotics rises.

"It becomes not just a long-term public health issue with respect to clinical trials, but an immediate public health issue when you think about folks right now who are dying of completely preventable diseases," she said.

Strategies and solutions

The panel repeatedly emphasized the critical need to bridge partisan divides and commit to strict qualifications for political appointments-key factors that cause the public to cast doubt on scientific expertise.

"You have to trust the experts," Dowd said. "If I'm sick, I go to a medically trained person. If my car is sick, I go to a mechanic. And I never swap those two. I think to some extent there are folks in the administration that have lost sight of that."

The panel offered a checklist of additional strategies for reaffirming public trust. Their recommendations included encouraging secondary schools to adopt critical thinking studies, particularly addressing internet misinformation; requiring even greater transparency of methods and findings among publicly-funded institutions and science journals; and restoring-even increasing-public funding for scientific research at universities.

They also conceded that the science community itself has often done a poor job of communicating research success stories. "You could argue science has an image problem, and that image could be improved by effective communication," Dowd said, noting that the public pays little attention to science issues beyond "one week in October when the Nobel Prizes are awarded."

Rather than tailoring their findings toward other academics, "communicating more effectively about what we're doing in the lab, including our successes and the processes we use to get there would be helpful," Wahlbeck added. "It really is incumbent on us to work on that."

The next installment in the CCAS series, titled "Reaching for the Stars-Big Equipment for Big Science," will focus on space images from instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope. The Nov. 19 event will feature Associate Professor and Department Chair of Physics Alexander van der Horst, Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Public Administration Leah Brooks and Research Professor of Physics Nicholas White.