Science and the Political System - Is That Fair?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Rick bright's story really does bring together a lot of that, and conflict and and co operation between science and the political system. And i feel like that, to some extent, reflects your reporting journey as well over the last couple of weeks. You know, through this episode of chronopod, i feel like we've really meandered around a bit. So we've talked about surveillance systems but that has kind of inevitably ended up with us talking about politics.

Rick Bright exposed former president Trump's political meddling in the US COVID response. Now he is championing a new privately funded initiative to track viral spread and combat new variants.

We discuss the challenges of collecting data on a rapidly spreading virus, from transmission dynamics to genomic surveillance. We also ask why a veteran government scientist like Bright, the ex-director of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, would take a new path in the private sector.

News Q&A: Pandemic whistle-blower: we need a non-political way to track viruses

News: Why US coronavirus tracking can’t keep up with concerning variants

Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.