‘No more throwing scientists to the bonfires’, says Lula – 07/12/2023 – Science

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said, this Wednesday (12), that he has had enough of throwing scientists into bonfires lit on the internet and in hate groups for lies and hate speech.

The statement was given during a ceremony at the Planalto Palace, in Brasília, for the delivery of the National Order of Scientific Merit and the resumption of the National Science and Technology Council (CCT). Despite the speech making references at various times to Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the former president was not mentioned by name.

Among those awarded at this Wednesday’s event, there are two specialists who had their honor revoked in 2021, at the height of Bolsonarist denialism during the pandemic: sanitary doctor Adele Benzaken and infectologist Marcus Vinícius Guimarães de Lacerda.

At the time, in reaction to the government, 20 scientists with the Order’s decoration collectively renounced their medals.

“Enough of throwing scientists into bonfires, no longer those of the Middle Ages, but those that lies and hate speech lit on the internet and in radical groups in our society”, he said.

“No more accepting that scientists like Adele Benzaken or Marcus Vinícius Guimarães de Lacerda have their decorations revoked. She because she was concerned about the health of trans men. He, because he dared to publish the truth: that chloroquine did not fight Covid”, he completed .

The PT candidate was applauded by the audience of researchers and government members at this point in his speech. It was also when he mentioned scientist Ricardo Galvão, dismissed by Bolsonaro from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) and current president of CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).

“Enough of witnessing researchers like Ricardo Galvão losing his position because he showed what the satellites recorded – and that everyone with the slightest intellectual honesty could see: in recent years, the Amazon was being degraded at an ever-increasing rate”, he said.

Lula said that those awarded who returned the honors in 2021 accepted them back today because they know that “science is back”. In his speech, the Chief Executive highlighted the environment, biodiversity and clean energy.

He also made an appeal to scientists not to leave their research “in a drawer”, but that the result generate learning and become a collective good.

“But it’s not enough for science to come back. We need to be tireless so that it is always with us. And so that no one – not even those who still have their heads in the dark ages – try, once again, to turn the clock of history backwards”, he said. Squid.

At the beginning of his speech, the president said it was a happy and sad day for science. Happy, because of the honors that would be retaken. And sad, because he remembered the former rector of UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina) Luiz Carlos Cancellier, whom he called a companion.

Cancellier committed suicide after an operation by the PF (Federal Police) that investigated alleged deviations at the university. The investigation prevented him from returning to UFSC, which occurred in the wake of the car wash.

“Whenever we can, we have to remember the people who were victims of arbitrary acts so that this insanity never happens again in Brazil”, stated Lula.