When Science Becomes Servitude: A Physician’s Response to Dr. Jake Scott’s Senate Testimony By Dr. Ellapen V. Rapiti Family Physician, Child and Mental Health Specialist

For science to thrive, dissenting voices must never be censored

When Science Becomes Servitude: A Physician’s Response to Dr. Jake Scott’s Senate Testimony

By Dr. Ellapen V. Rapiti

Family Physician, Child and Mental Health Specialist

Cape Town, South Africa

On October 16, 2025, viewers across the globe witnessed a troubling spectacle at the U.S. Senate hearing on vaccine science. Dr. Jake Scott, once regarded as a thoughtful voice in infectious disease, chose to publicly dismiss a compelling study presented by scientists affiliated with the Gerald Ford Institute—research that showed superior long-term health outcomes among unvaccinated children compared to their vaccinated peers.

Rather than engaging with the data, Dr. Scott resorted to sweeping condemnation, invoking “detection bias” and “lack of peer review” as rhetorical shields. His tone was not that of a scientist seeking truth, but of a gatekeeper defending orthodoxy. In doing so, he forfeited the trust of many viewers who expected transparency, humility, and intellectual rigor.

Dr Scott has earned the reputation of sounding more like an uninformed journalist with his frequent use of phrases like, “the vaccines saved millions of lives”, “COVID took hundreds of his patients lives” ; the COVID vaccine saved millions of lives, without producing an ounce of scientific evidence or data to support his claims.

He became selectively deaf when he was informed by Aron Siri - spoke under oath -that the authors feared losing their jobs in 2020 if they revealed their findings at the height of medical censorship. His stony silence at this evidence was proof that he didn’t care for freedom of expression but his own selfish agenda and that was to protect big pharma and his funding.

The study in question, though unpublished, was presented by credentialed researchers with access to robust datasets. Their findings—if true—demand urgent scrutiny, not ideological dismissal. Science progresses through challenge and replication, not censorship. Yet Dr. Scott’s testimony resembled a pharmaceutical press release more than a scientific rebuttal.

This moment reveals a deeper crisis: the erosion of independent inquiry in medicine. When dissenting voices are silenced and inconvenient data are ridiculed, we no longer serve the public—we serve industry. The public’s skepticism is not rooted in ignorance but in betrayal. They see the revolving door between regulatory agencies and pharmaceutical firms. They see the suppression of frontline clinicians who speak out. And now, they see a Senate witness who looked more like a paid lobbyist than a physician.

As a family doctor who has spent decades defending patient autonomy and ethical medicine, I urge my colleagues to reflect. Our duty is not to defend consensus—it is to defend truth. That means listening to dissent, scrutinizing all data, and refusing to let science become servitude.

Let this hearing be a wake-up call. The credibility of our profession depends not on conformity, but on courage to defy unscientific advice.

Dr E V Rapiti

Cape Town

October 16, 2025

Bio: Dr Rapiti is a family physician and a staunch advocate of the truth and ethical medicine. He has no conflict of evidence. He feels that much of the public lost their trust in the medical profession after COVID. Doctors need to fight hard to regain the trust of the public. They need to practice ethical medicine instead of blindly supporting unscientific narratives.