Vaccine Populism

“Vaksin Nusantara” continues to be developed despite opposition. Before members of the House of Representatives (DPR) members, [former health minister] Terawan Agus Putranto demonstratively presented what “prospects” the vaccines carried.

His presentation, which looked like a cooking demo, appeared to arouse enthusiasm, while in fact, the majority of scientists and the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) has voiced that its clinical trials do not comply with standard scientific rules.

Terawan engaging himself in the development of the Nusantara vaccine is no longer a matter of science. The Nusantara vaccine entered the political realm before being thoroughly scrutinized in the science discussion room.

What he was presenting before the politicians was not how effective the vaccine was in reducing the severity of infection or preventing transmission, but rather more about science primordialism.

"Nusantara" is the key word to define “our” as opposed to foreign-made vaccines.

The self-claimed positioning like this certainly gives a breath of fresh air in the wake of the raucously talked issue of capitalism and suspected conspiracy in the vaccine industry.

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In the frame to outline the position distinctively against global powers, Nusantara vaccine must strive to prove that the used components are domestically produced. Terawan has claimed that more than 90 percent of the production substances are already in Indonesia and his presentation at the House was an effort to convince lawmakers that vaccine manufacturing was not as difficult as many people thought.

Scientific populism

This idea could easily be refuted by scientists. Deplorably, when the presentation of vaccine manufacture has been brought into the DPR assembly room, the issue now is no longer about right and wrong in the application of science. Nusantara vaccine looks to be building its own scientific populism motivated by the interest vested behind political populism.

KOMPAS/TOTOK WIJAYANTO

The community health center (Puskesmas) in Cilincing subdistrict, North Jakarta conducts a COVID-19 vaccination simulation on Tuesday (12/1/2021). The simulation includes registration, screening or health examinations, vaccination and post-vaccination observation. The observation lasts 30 minutes to see if there are any side effects after a person receives the vaccine. The government plans to begin the Covid-19 vaccination program on 13 Jan, 2021. President Joko Widodo will be the first person to be injected with the Covid-19 vaccine.

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, the reluctance of parents in Western Europe to vaccinate their children appeared to be anecdotally correlated with the political populism that was springing up in the region.

What drove both of them to grow up stemmed from the same thing: a deep-rooted distrust toward elites and experts. The same is true about the hot discourses on the climate change.

Politicians are not without the competence to read data and facts. They are not elements that work alone, but move in the companionship of experts who provide input through the right and left ears.

However, populism—again—doesn\'t dwell in the essence of truth, but operates to see which side gives more benefits to win the support and votes of the people.

Not only in Indonesia, 22 percent of British people also show suspicions that the death data has been exaggerated.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, some people chose to side with the emerging convictions that the pandemic was part of elite conspiracy. The reverberations are yet to decrease in proportion even though the pandemic has lasted more than a year. Not only in Indonesia, 22 percent of British people also show suspicions that the death data has been exaggerated.

In the US, dozens of protesters blockaded and shut away from vaccination sites in early 2021. Many health professionals emerged as new "experts" on social media and were quickly becoming popular for rejecting the declared pandemic status, lockdowns, or vaccines.

Their approach was always the same -- the use of words that were irritating, even tended to be agitating with the attached pieces of scientific evidence that were incompletely or incorrectly interpreted. The trigger went down well with misguided society amid the uninterruptedly overflowing infodemic.

They did not have the ability to search for information as shrewdly as scientists, let alone philosophers. Instead, they looked for information merely to satisfy their own interests and expectations.

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Human has a tendency to seek what they want to hear about, while a pandemic with all the challenges posed in its handling is not a pleasant thing to deal with that would be accepted by human with sincerity. When they find information that matches their expectations, that\'s where the seeds of scientific populism have grounded on fertile land.

AFP/NICOLAS ASFOURI

In this file photo taken on April 29, 2020, an engineer looks at monkey kidney cells as he makes a test on an experimental vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus inside the Cells Culture Room laboratory at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing. - Sinovac Biotech is conducting one of the five clinical trials of potential vaccines that have been authorised in China. China would make any coronavirus vaccine it developed a "global public good" once it was put into use, President Xi Jinping told the World Health Assembly on May 18, 2020.

The trigger for its growth is the desire for popularity. Populism does not seem to die down amid the pandemic -- as Santiago Zabala is alluding in his book Pan(dem)ic! – only that it is changing form.

If Donald Trump is known as the practitioner of cultural populism and Andre Lopez Obrador in Mexico is identified as an adherent to economic populism, Nusantara vaccine may be self-claimed as a new variant of vaccine populism.

Medical populism

Uniquely, this vaccine populism has not come just abruptly from an empty domain. It followed the populism that began to exist in the early days of the pandemic, which Gideon Lasco (2020) referred to as medical populism.

As politics is shaping up into typically distinctive forms of interests, public is becoming increasingly fragmented from one another, and claims of being knowledgeable are often contested, and health crises such as pandemics become issues that are increasingly vulnerable to politicization.

Who are "we" and who are "they" becomes conspicuous and stirs an interesting political game amid the pandemic.

The narrative that Indonesian Government officials put forward at the start of the pandemic was an obvious form of medical populism. The expressions “the virus is just a common cold”, “we are strong”, or “just face it with prayers and herbs” are raised as an effort to simplify the issue.

Such an effort does not necessarily reflect negligence or ignorance because with the knowledge disseminating rapidly, officials have adequate information about the risk of the virus for the future.

However, effort of simplification is a consciously chosen strategy to segregate opinions between “we” and “they”— and “we” is always emphasized to have better image than “them”.

Kompas

Indonesian President Joko Widodo wearing a protective mask and face shield talks as he inspects the third phase trial for COVID-19 vaccine in Bandung, Indonesia, August 11, 2020.

When Nusantara vaccine was mooted, simplification effort was again presented with full awareness in order to draw admiration through statements, such as "because it would draw suggestions that it is very difficult to make a vaccine". The statement came out in the same pattern of simplification as it was raised in the early pandemic by the same person.

Such an approached strategy causes sharp segregation between groups of society. Being opposite to the direction of science mainline does not show a weakness, but rather serves a fuel to inflame distrust of people who are drained by the chaos overshadowing the pandemic.

His presence in the DPR room was a form of soliciting the support of politicians who are often quick at capitalizing opportunities for popularity gains.

Political science

The unfolding situation should not be seen only as infuriating scientists, but a source for reflection on the failure of science to overcome health problems and pandemics. As extraordinarily credited as it may be, science cannot stand alone on its lighthouse.

Science is indeed an enlightenment, but science also needs media to apply it. Medical and health scientists may already understand evidence-based medicine. However, in the policy-making scope, scientific evidence is not the only variable that excels.

Likewise, it is not necessarily in accordance with the motives behind the scenes that encourage other political actions.

Products of policy-making will put scientific evidence intersecting with politics and culture. What is truly scientific is not necessarily commensurate with the culture that is believed and practiced in society. Likewise, it is not necessarily in accordance with the motives behind the scenes that encourage other political actions.

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The pandemic reminds scientists about few things. We are not only racing to find evidence of new formulas in dealing with viruses, medicines, or vaccines, but also fighting to understand the thoughts, motives, and interests that are mixed up in the public sphere.

Will vaccines solve all the problems of this pandemic? Will wearing masks and enforcing lockdowns reduce people\'s fears about losing livelihood sources and their financial future? It seems to be unlikely, especially if the political and policy domain are dominated by short-term and partial interests controlled by certain cliques.

RESEARCHGATE.NET

Ahmad Fuady

Vaccine populism will not improve the situation either. It might worsen it instead. The key to handling the pandemic is by employing political wisdom in bridging various interests, not indulging in relative truth and underestimating others.

At this point does political wisdom becomes a healing virtue as Rudolf Virchow said centuries ago: “Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale.”

Ahmad Fuady, Doctor, Researcher, Health Political Observer

(This article was translates by Musthofid)