The erosion of public trust in Science since the COVID-19 pandemic is evident. This erosion reflects a natural response to heavy-handed attempts to enforce a singular and unquestionable “truth” through governmental coercion.

Restoring trust requires a straightforward yet lengthy process. The government and its experts must prioritize genuine science, a principle that was neglected in 2020-2021 when China-styled lockdowns were imposed without consideration of human losses as a result of these policies OR

pushing highly centralized solutions of “safe and efficient” vaccination as the only way to protect people from the pandemic, disregarding the choice of patients.

Additionally, governmental experts should disclose any conflicts of interest when their publicly funded research results in policy advice/decisions that allocate more funds and discretionary power to governmental agencies.

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Yanovskiy, M., & Socol, Y. (2023). The conflict of interest that is so grave that we all prefer to ignore it?. Semestre Económico, 12(2), 78–91. https://doi.org/10.26867/se.2023.v12i2.153

Abstract: Conflict of Interest declaration is the default way to mitigate the risk of harm of unconscious or deliberate promotion of self-interest causing misinformation or wrong decision-making. Public attention to the disclosure of interests caused by private sources of research funding results in a routine procedure now. At the same time, very strong interests caused by taxpayer-covered Governmental funding of research are generally badly underestimated. Researchers generally have no idea that taking public funding and promoting policy advice to provide more funds should be declared as a conflict of interest: Promotion of more funds and power under the control of bureaucratic bodies or entities is anticipated to bring more funding for the researchers themselves. For example, the COVID-19 response of most democratic governments, based on the use of emergency powers, enjoys broad support from publicly funded research – though the effectiveness of such a response is not supported by the history of previous pandemics. The explicit requirement to disclose public funding as a potential Conflict of Interest, at least in case the authors promote more power and more funds for the Government, will mitigate risks of one of the potentially dangerous biases both in research and in decision-making.