In an interview on Benoit Dutrizac’s show on QUB radio, broadcast simultaneously on 99.5 FM in Montreal, Remi Quirion, the chief scientist of Quebec, expressed concern about the impact of misinformation spread by the Trump administration. “It’s very worrying. Coming from the most powerful country in the world in terms of science and research, the United States, and the president who says ‘we no longer believe in data, we don’t care’. And you have Robert Kennedy Jr. who doesn’t believe anything, who doesn’t believe in science as such and who, in terms of his approach, like autism for example, continues to invest heavily in it while cutting funding in areas such as RNA… It’s terrible. I never thought I would see this again,” he said.
Quirion remains convinced that humanity has much to gain from relying on science. “Science can help build bridges between countries. And that, with today’s geopolitical situation, wars everywhere, Americans who are no longer really investing in science… Science often helps to build bridges between top decision-makers and to have more open interactions between countries,” he adds.
One of the most recent examples of this was during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Chinese sequenced the virus, [to find out] what type of amino acid this virus was made of. It became public knowledge for everyone… People from different countries worked together, so it allowed the development of vaccines much more quickly. What has been happening in recent years is that barriers are being put up everywhere: don’t collaborate with him, with this country or that country, for political reasons,” he explains.
For the full interview, watch the video above.
