We live in an era of unprecedented misinformation, disinformation, and outright antiscience aggression. Fake news travels faster than true news. The public is getting more information from Whatsapp, TikTok and social media than trusted health agencies and scientists. In fact, WHO considers the anti-vaccination movement among the 10 biggest threats to global health. The fact that we saw outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in 2024 is a sad testament to this threat. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, childhood vaccination rates have dropped globally, with disastrous consequences, especially for children.

And 2025 promises to be much worse, with Donald Trump getting re-elected. He has already hand-picked several anti-vaxxers and science-deniers to support his administration, starting with Robert F Kennedy Jr, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

A recent American Public Health Agency (APHA) statement cautioned that "Kennedy’s past statements and views on vaccines alone should disqualify him from consideration. He has stated that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and touted misinformation claiming that vaccines cause autism."

What is likely to unfold in the coming months, and why is there so much anti-science and disinformation today? What are the consequences of this disinformation for public health, both within the United States and globally? Who stands to benefit from the disinformation and chaos? Are there ways to counter disinformation and regain public trust in science?

Thankfully, several thoughtful physicians and scientists have published important books that can help us better understand the growing anti-science and anti-public health movement, and take steps to better protect the health of the public. Here are 5 important books:

1. On Call, by Anthony Fauci: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743358/on-call-by-anthony-fauci-md/ 

2. The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, by Peter J. Hotez: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/33293/deadly-rise-anti-science 

3. Deadly Choices: How the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all, by Paul A. Offit: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/paul-a-offit-md/deadly-choices/9780465057962/?lens=basic-books 

4. Booster Shots, by Adam Ratner: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670274/booster-shots-by-adam-ratner-md-mph/ 

5. We Want Them Infected, by Jonathan Howard: https://redhawkpublications.com/We-Want-Them-Infected-p547021769 

I have a longer list of great books on global health here, but these 5 books are very relevant in this new year, as the US and the world gears up for a devastating cocktail of anti-science, anti-vax, and anti-public health that will be fueled by the Trump administration and likely to spread far and wide. In fact, it already has spread far and wide, and can only get worse.

In a recent essay, Michael Mann and Peter Hotez identified climate change, pandemics, and anti-science as a "triple threat to humanity." They wrote about "a well-organized, financed, politically motivated, and steadily globalizing campaign of disinformation and attacks against mainstream science that makes it extremely difficult to mount an effective global response to the climate and pandemic threats."

As I have written elsewhere, all of us in health, medicine and public health will have work harder to counter this tidal wave of disinformation and anti-scientific policies, and work very hard to regain the trust of the public, and retain the trust. We also need to prepare health students for the real world they will graduate into, a world rife with populist politics, polarization, anti-science, and a tired, weary public that has lost trust in science.

Reading these books made me feel grateful for physicians like Fauci, Hotez, Ratner, Offit and Howard for not only their hard work, but their courage in standing up for science.