ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the overall political “fragility landscape” through Republican and Democratic lenses, and then discusses how health professionals both at the individual and organizational level have unfortunately contributed to increased American fragility and decreased American government legitimacy. Two bottom lines emerge from this chapter. While we might expect that all health professionals believe in science, the reality is that, given human nature, some health professionals don't believe in science. There are health professionals for whom obtaining and preserving power “trumps” science. Secondly, instead of focusing on “rogue” health professionals, we should focus on the organizations that represent health professionals. In the case of physicians, this means, in particular, the American Medical Association and the Federation of State Medical Boards that are the “gatekeepers.” As this chapter documents, there are opportunities for improvement in the way that these two organizations, for example, have, in general, addressed the pandemic and how they have dealt with individual physicians who have pursued power over science.
