This isn't the first time an anti-science leader rallied his supporter to attack and discredit a doctor in the face of an epidemic in order to preserve the economy.

In 1900, a steamship from China docked in San Francisco. Among its other cargo was a bunch of fleas carrying

bubonic plague. The US already had a plague containment unit, with a team in San Francisco. Dr Joseph Kinyoun was the first to identify a plague victim, but Governor Gage of California refused to take action believing that it would harm the state's economy. He also discounted

the evidence put forth by Dr Kinyoun because he didn't believe in microbes that could not be seen with the naked eye. Dr Kinyoun was discredited in the media, and even accused of planting evidence to create a public panic. Eventually the federal government relocated him.

The epidemic lasted until 1904 and killed hundreds in Northern California, largely because the government refused to acknowledge its existence. Worse than that, it allowed the plague to establish a permanent foothold in the western US that continues to this day.

Modern hygiene standards have made outbreaks relatively rare, but they still occur. In 2019 a wildlife preserve in Colorado was closed to the public because plague carrying fleas had infested local prairie dogs. Virtually every case of plague in the US can be traced back

to the San Francisco plague of 1900-1904, and it might never have established a foothold in this country had the government responded quickly and appropriately.

As for Dr Kinyoun, he went on to become the founding father of the NIH.