In conversation with global health law expert Professor Lawrence Gostin

On November 13 2025, Lawrence Gostin, Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown Law, delivered the first Birmingham Law School Annual Lecture. 

His talk, entitled 'Standing up for Science', criticised the health policies of individuals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and explored the crisis of trust in vaccines, public health, and science in the United States

Before his lecture, we sat down with Lawrence to ask him some questions. 

With RFK Jr. as Health Secretary in the US, in what ways do you feel that trust in public health information is being undermined?

"Basically, you've got a health secretary that doesn't believe in science, that spews out conspiracy theories. Even before he became secretary, he was probably the world's leading purveyor of vaccine scepticism. He’s continuing to do that with links between vaccines and autism, changing childhood immunizations schedules, and the whole MAHA (Make American Healthy Again) movement. It’s based on natural remedies and supplements and healthy living against medications, against vaccines.

"So more than undermining health, he's dismantling our public health and infrastructure, and particularly dismantling our most venerable scientific agencies, CDC, NIH, and the FDA."

How hard do you think the road back is going to be?

"I think it’s going to be very hard. I mean, a lot of this arose because of COVID and its aftermath, that public distrust after COVID. I think it's going to be very hard. Especially whether or not we're going to have trustworthy health information. I'm currently chairing a commission for the journal ‘Nature’ on quality health information for all and trying to figure out: How do you get good health information? Especially when there's so much amplification on social media, fuelled by artificial intelligence."

Where should people be looking now when they're trying to wade through this mass of misinformation?

"Unfortunately, even some of the safe harbours are at risk. All of my life, the strategy I used for differentiating the high quality from low quality health information is looking at something as simple as the US CDC website. It was authoritative and evidence driven, but even now, it's being censored, changed, even the origins of COVID are being manipulated as a political tool. I think that is a real problem. I mean trust in public health agencies, including public health agencies in the UK, US, WHO, and others, are under enormous stress and political influence"

Taking that more global outlook, do you think that what's happening in America is going to have a knock-on effect globally?

"It has already. Childhood immunisation rates and even the adult immunisation rates have plummeted in a lot of countries around the world.

"Social media isn't limited to the United States. You still have the same amplification of conspiracy theories and false and misleading information everywhere, even in Africa.

"Trump and Kennedy are not the only populist leaders, there are populist leaders, on both the left and the right, in the world that are undermining progress in global health. Even when I was in Berlin, I talked to the German health minister, and I said, “could it happen here?" And he said, "We're just an election away”. Here you've got Nigel Farage, who was very mischievous during the COVID pandemic.

"And so, I don't think any democracy can take this for granted."

Do you think that use of AI in healthcare is going to further undermine trust in how health data is collected and used?

"Of course. Artificial intelligence has a lot of value in health and medicine and could lead to dramatic scientific innovations. It also can help governments provide high quality information.

"Unfortunately, there's no doubt that it amplifies conspiracy theories and false and misleading information. The algorithms that there are meant to shock, meant to send out information that shocks and images that shock. And often the public can't differentiate between high and low quality information."

Do you think that universities have a bigger role to play in combatting that misinformation?

"The attack on academia is part of the playbook of the Autocrat. It’s happening in the United States and Hungary, in many parts of the world. The United States boasts among the greatest universities in the world: Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and others. Many of them had to capitulate in the face of the barrage on academics. I do think academics need to be brave. I'm calling my talk tonight ‘Standing up for Science’, I think that's really, crucially important."

Looking forward then, what needs to change?

"Well, the first thing we need is to restore public trust in science and public health. I think that's extraordinarily important. We have to invest in science research; we have to invest in robust health systems. I also think the education system, particularly in this age of social media, needs to change. I think those are the major challenges that we face.

"We still face the same enduring challenges like pandemics, anti-microbial resistance, so that our drugs can continue to be effective. But I think we're highly likely to get another pandemic. I can't tell you when and I can't tell you what the pathogen will be, but I can tell you for sure that we will have it. I don't think we' prepared for it, and that's on top of ongoing problems of chronic diseases; cancer, diabetes, heart disease, that are crippling societies."

Do you think that there's anything we should be feeling optimistic about in the outlook of global health?

"I think we're in a golden age of scientific innovation. I think it's very likely that when the next pandemic hits, it won't take us a year to get a vaccine, even though that was record breaking speed. Usually, it's 10 years. But it'll be a matter of months, even weeks, and artificial intelligence and messenger RNA technology will drive that. I think that science is our future."