When facts become optional: Confronting the rise of anti-science culture

In recent times, the international scientific community has found itself confronting a series of unprecedented challenges characterised by the erosion of scientific autonomy through political interference, ideological suppression, and growing anti-intellectual sentiment. ¹ While paramedicine is often seen as a relatively small discipline within the broader spectrum of health sciences, our profession has both a stake in, and a responsibility to respond to these developments with clarity and resolution.

This encroachment of ideology into the scientific process has become particularly visible in the USA, where ongoing attempts to constrain research agendas, silence dissenting scholarship, and undermine editorial independence have been widely documented. ² The current administration in the USA has implemented, and continues to pursue, significant funding cuts of serious magnitude for institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency ³ ; and in doing so, research into climate change, public health equity, and minority inclusion has come under particularly focused scrutiny. ⁴

This precedent carries world-wide implications. In a recent editorial in Nature, the editorial board stated that ‘What happens in the United States is watched closely by people in positions of power around the world…The playbook being written in Washington DC offers a template to those who wish to follow the same path in their own countries’. ² As an international community, we must not therefore assume we are immune by virtue of distance to what is happening in the USA. As an international journal, Paramedicine recognises that our discipline, profession, and scientific community are not isolated from these developments and challenges; if anything, our geographical distance from the epicentre of these developments places more onus on us to speak out and reaffirm our shared values. In solidarity, we must in effect ‘lean in’ and lend our voice to the discord. Those outside the USA cannot afford to be passive actors in the anti-science theatre playing out before us.

The impact of this ideological suppression is particularly pernicious when it targets research involving marginalised or disenfranchised populations. In the context of paramedicine and its role in delivering predominantly unscheduled care across the continuum of acuity and complexity, this includes research into disparities in care provision access among Indigenous communities, racialised populations, gender-diverse people, and those living in remote or socioeconomically disadvantaged settings. Suppressing such research through explicit censorship or more subtle forms of disincentivisation such as underfunding or defunding has the potential to result in real-world harm through the perpetuation of health inequities.

Paramedicine therefore unequivocally affirms our commitment to inclusive, transparent, and independent research and publishing. As editors of Paramedicine, we join the international community of scientific journals who have recently reaffirmed their dedication to editorial autonomy and integrity. We will continue to select manuscripts solely based on their scientific rigour, methodological soundness, and relevance to the advancement of the profession, and never based on political, ideological, or institutional preference.

Furthermore, we commit to calling out any attempts to improperly influence the editorial or peer-review process. We will stringently push back at efforts to ostracise research that investigates systemic health inequities or that gives voice to under-represented communities. We will continue to welcome and value submissions that investigate the social determinants of health and highlight structural barriers to equitable care provision by paramedics; in our view addressing such uncomfortable realities remains a moral and scientific imperative.

Our profession is part of an international scientific community, and with that comes a shared responsibility to confront anti-science rhetoric and resist politically motivated interference in research and publishing. Paramedicine proudly stands in solidarity with individuals and organisations around the world steadfastly resisting the anti-science and anti-intellectual movement and we will continue forward with our unwavering commitment to methodological rigour, inclusivity, and transparency in our scholarly work. The Australian military figure Lieutenant General David Morrison, in the context of addressing unacceptable behaviour once famously quoted ‘The standard you walk past is the standard you accept’ ⁵ : on the issues discussed herein, we at Paramedicine choose to stop and take a stand. We encourage readers to do the same.