SOS Brazil: science under attack
Authors: Pedro C Hallal
Journal: The Lancet (2021)

As of Jan 21, 2021, Brazil ranks second in number of deaths from COVID-19 and third in number of cases seen in any single country. As a scientist, I tend not to believe in coincidence. In March, 2020, President Jair Bolsonaro referred to COVID-19 as a "gripezinha",1BBC2 momentos em que Bolsonaro chamou covid-19 de 'gripezinha', o que agora nega.https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-55107536Date: Nov 27, 2020Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar a little flu. In April, 2020, he declared there were signs the pandemic was coming to an end. A month later, when asked by journalists about the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, Bolsonaro responded "So what? What do you want me to do?"2Garcia G Henrique Gomes P Viana H 'E daí? Lamento. Quer que eu faça o quê?', diz Bolsonaro sobre mortes por coronavírus; 'Sou Messias, mas não faço milagre'.https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/04/28/e-dai-lamento-quer-que-eu-faca-o-que-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-mortes-por-coronavirus-no-brasil.ghtmlDate: April 28, 2020Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar In response, the Editors3The LancetCOVID-19 in Brazil: so what?.Lancet. 2020; 3951461Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (341) Google Scholar suggested that "perhaps the biggest threat to Brazil's COVID-19 response is its president, Jair Bolsonaro". More recently, Bolsonaro was, to the best of my knowledge, the only head of state worldwide to say he would not get vaccinated. He even discouraged the population from taking the vaccine by saying: "If you turn into a crocodile, it's your problem".4AFPBrazil's Bolsonaro warns virus vaccine can turn people into 'crocodiles'.https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201218-brazil-s-bolsonaro-warns-virus-vaccine-can-turn-people-into-crocodileDate: Dec 18, 2020Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar Although these statements are outrageous, Brazil's response to the pandemic is much worse. Testing rates are far below the world average.5Hasell J Mathieu E Beltekian D et al.A cross-country database of COVID-19 testing.Sci Data. 2020; 7: 345Crossref PubMed Scopus (296) Google Scholar No national policy on contact tracing has been implemented. Social distancing has been discredited. In 4 weeks, Brazil had three ministers of health. Despite Brazilian scientists and research institutes, such as Butantan and Fiocruz, being heavily involved in the global vaccine run, supplies of syringes and needles were insufficient to start the immunisation campaign.6Jornal NacionalBrasil pode não ter agulhas e seringas suficientes para vacinar contra Covid, alerta conselho.https://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2020/12/30/brasil-pode-nao-ter-agulhas-e-seringas-suficientes-para-vacinar-contra-covid-alerta-conselho.ghtmlDate: Dec 30, 2020Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar Since the beginning of Bolsonaro's presidency in 2019, science has been attacked with budget cuts and negationism. Ricardo Galvão, director of the National Spatial Research Institute, was fired after presenting and commenting on data on deforestation. Former ministers of health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta and Nelson Teich, publicly disagreed with Bolsonaro by defending scientific recommendations to fight COVID-19. I never thought I would be next. I am the principal investigator of EPICOVID-19, the largest epidemiological study of COVID-19 in Brazil. In its first three rounds of this countrywide study, we found marked regional, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, as well as a six-fold difference between official statistics and estimates on the real number of infected people.7Hallal PC Hartwig FP Horta BL et al.SARS-CoV-2 antibody prevalence in Brazil: results from two successive nationwide serological household surveys.Lancet Glob Health. 2020; 8: e1390-e1398Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (234) Google Scholar These findings were not well received by the ministry of health, and funding for the study was discontinued in July, 2020. Fortunately, EPICOVID-19 has received funding from other institutions and continued to provide information on the burden of COVID-19 in Brazil. In 2020, I was summoned to Brasília on three separate occasions for meetings with the ministry of health. Four days after my last visit to Brasília, in December, 2020, I started presenting with COVID-19 symptoms. My severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was revealed to the public by the media, and I was accused of hypocrisy and a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude.8Vasconcellos H Deputado critica ex-reitor que contraiu covid-19: 'Moral de cuecas'.https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/ultimas-noticias/2021/01/14/deputado-critica-ex-reitor-que-contraiu-covid-19-moral-de-cuecas.htmDate: Jan 14, 2021Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar On Jan 11, 2021, in a radio interview, I was criticised by a congressman and by a journalist: the reason being that if I had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, it meant I did not follow the very advice I disseminate. On Jan 14, 2021, Bolsonaro tweeted9@jairbolsonaro https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1349659482251526152Date: Jan 14, 2021Date accessed: January 18, 2021Google Scholar the link to the specific segment of the radio interview in which my infection was mentioned. Coincidentally or not, Bolsonaro's attack occurred exactly when the pandemic reached unprecedented numbers in Brazil. Manaus, in the Amazon region, is experiencing chaos as oxygen supplies are being depleted. The minister of health flew to Manaus and, after a 3-day visit, announced the city would be supplied with chloroquine, ivermectin, and other drugs to fight the situation. At the same time, politicians, businessmen, and other supporters of Bolsonaro were fighting against an announced (and urgently needed) lockdown in Manaus. Unbelievably, on Jan 16, 2021, a publication from the ministry of health was flagged by Twitter as violating its publication rules for disseminating misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19. Brazil's tragic COVID-19 policy comes with a price. With 211 million people, the Brazilian population represents 2·7% of the world's population. If Brazil accounted for 2·7% of global COVID-19 deaths (ie, performing as the global average in fighting the pandemic), 56 311 people would have died. However, by Jan 21, 2021, 212 893 people have died from COVID-19. In other words, 156 582 lives were lost in the country because of underperformance. Attacking scientists will definitely not help solve the problem. I declare no competing interests. A Portuguese version of this Correspondence is in the appendix. Download .pdf (.1 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix Assessing government responsibility for COVID-19 deathsPedro Hallal1 describes how Brazil's President Bolsonaro has ridiculed the COVID-19 pandemic, hindered scientists, and implemented unreasonable policies. One point, holding the president's policies accountable for the death of 156 582 people, warrants a closer look. The estimate is based on the premise that Brazil should have COVID-19 death rates equal to the world average. However, there are substantial limitations to that assumption. Many of the countries reporting death rates that are less than the world average have authoritarian governments that typically control and censor information . Full-Text PDF Brazilian science under continuous attackDespite the resistance of Brazilian scientists, science in Brazil has been undermined by measures implemented by the federal government in the past 3 years, such as increasing budget cuts, attacks on the autonomy of universities, and a general policy of denial of science. A recent budget cut of US$110 million to the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovations budget, in addition to the withholding of $490 million from the National Scientific and Technological Development Fund, not only represents an enormous impediment to conducting research at universities and research institutes, but also jeopardises the future scientific development of a country. Full-Text PDF SOS Brazil: democracy under attackIn early 2021, I published a Correspondence titled "SOS Brazil: science under attack",1 after being prosecuted and threatened for expressing my scientific disagreement with Brazil's monumental failure to respond to COVID-19.2 Despite the fact that all charges against me are now filed, the censorship movement is far from the end. One and a half years later, the situation has not got any better. Instead, Brazil is standing on the edge looking into the abyss, with its democracy at stake. Full-Text PDF New beginnings for Latin America?The stakes are high for Brazil's upcoming Presidential election. If current predictions are correct, President Jair Bolsonaro will be defeated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, either in the first round of voting on Oct 2, or in a run-off on Oct 30. However, the gap between the candidates has been narrowing. There are fears in the country that Bolsonaro, who is known for his volatility and indirect incitement of violence, will not go quietly. He has already criticised Brazil's electronic voting system in the presence of foreign ambassadors. Full-Text PDF