It's not just Neil Ferguson – scientists are being attacked for telling the truth | Bob Ward

The media vilification of the government adviser is about far more than social distancing

Bob Ward is policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics
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The newspaper frenzy over Prof Neil Ferguson's love life is just the latest example of a scientist who has been targeted for confronting parts of Britain's political-media complex with evidence that it finds too difficult to accept.

There is no doubt that Ferguson, who sat on the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) before his resignation, was wrong to ignore the government's social distancing rules. He has admitted as much, even if he did believe that he was at low risk of spreading the Sars-Cov-2 virus because he had already recovered from Covid-19.