Let's Get Political with Science

Fresh from the tensions of the Cold War, drones have rapidly risen in American discussions in the past decade. Drones are the model organism of two of the hottest debates right now–the right to privacy, and how the United States represents itself internationally, particularly in how it interacts with the Middle East. The Rise of Drones provides an excellent view introduction into these debates, forming a narrow-field view upon which further discussions can be explored.

Originally developed as a military technology in the 60’s and 70’s, drones have begun to penetrate the public sphere within the past decade. Many Americans are utilizing them as a hobby, often times in photography and videography. However, taking cameras to the sky has led many Americans to question what their rights to privacy are. Senator Rand Paul is often recognized for his 2013 filibuster where he advocated against drone surveillance of Americans, and for his later threat to shoot one out of the sky f it was in his neighborhood.

Ironically, this fear does not hold true when discussing aggressive international policies. In 2015, Paul advocated for the military use of drones. The militaristic use of drones is advocated because of their capability to be used for both reconnaissance and strikes, all without placing the lives of American military personnel at risk. But is this lack of risk their greatest danger?

Drone strikes were engaged to fight Al Qaeda in the Middle East, resulting in over 300 strikes into a single country within a year. While these strikes occurred in Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen, the United States had only officially declared war in Afghanistan. If American lives aren’t directly involved, it seems we become too lax in our offensive policies–invading countries and killing its citizens without a declaration of war. Do we lose all morality if the lives lost are viewed through a screen thousands of miles away from where they were killed?

As tensions rise internationally due to the covert use of drones in surveillance and strikes, it will be interesting to see how views change. Will this technology that was first developed in the Cold War Era inspire the same fear as nuclear attacks did in the 70’s? Will American privacy concerns come to mirror concerns in international policy? We’ve already seen some change since The Rise of Drones was published in 2013, it will be interesting to see how this continues to develop.

Currently, we are witnessing the return of a variety of preventable diseases due to vaccination. Within the past few weeks, Washington state declared a state of emergency due to a measles outbreak. Recently, news just broke of a 2017 case where a 6 year-old’s parents in Oregon refused to give their child the tetanus vaccine, so he spent 57 days in the hospital with $800,000 in medical bills. When these diseases are preventable, why are they occurring so frequently?

The rise in preventable diseases like measles is due to the rise of the anti-vaccination movement. As more people become hesitant about vaccines and do not vaccinate their children, the community’s immunity to the disease decreases and people are more likely to contract it. Many critics of the anti-vaccination movement have blamed the associated spread of misinformation on social media, particularly Facebook.

Simply searching “vaccine” on Facebook provides one with a multitude of anti-vaccination groups, many of which outright ban posts that support medicine, pharmaceuticals, or vaccination in anyway. These groups are found on the first page, making this misinformation readily accessible and allowing users to easily curate a bubble of those who support them. Facebook has since announced plans to diminish the visibility of these groups, sparking arguments on freedom of speech. Pinterest has supported their own suppression of anti-vaccination communities by saying that users have “the freedom of speech, not the freedom of reach”.

This spread of misinformation is based in fear. A lot of vaccine hesitancy is, unfortunately, sensibly based on distrust of the government and pharmaceuticals. Within the past few years alone, we constantly see stories about the harms pharmaceutical companies have enacted on the population, often with some farm of government knowledge or complacency:

• Purdue Pharma was accused of simultaneously urging doctors to state an opioid had a low addiction risk and manufacturing an anti-addiction drug–helping to create the opioid epidemic to increase profits.
• Insulin prices have increased to cost patients hundreds of dollars a month. This is a necessary drug for diabetics, and patients have attempted to ration their supplies and have thus died.
• This is combined with high-deductible insurance plans that cost Americans hundreds of thousands every year. Many plans also have a “donut-hole” where after a certain threshold, insurance won’t cover anything until the next threshold has been met.

Among other things, these make it painfully obvious that the American healthcare system is not meant to help patients. We are customers and consumers, and thus can be cast aside in the interest of higher profits. As many of the anti-vaccination movement have argued, companies must be more forthcoming with the risks associated with medications and re-introduce the foundations of informed consent and bodily autonomy in healthcare. However, these things cannot be instituted in a way that places public health at risk.