Peter Hotez is an American physician-scientist, vaccine researcher, and one of the most prominent public voices in the fight against anti-science movements. He serves as Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he also holds professorships in pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology. He co-directs the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and holds the Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Hotez is best known for two things: developing low-cost vaccines for diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest populations, and using his platform to push back against vaccine misinformation. His work sits at the intersection of laboratory science, global health policy, and public advocacy, which has made him both widely respected and a frequent target of anti-vaccine groups.
Career in Neglected Tropical Diseases
The core of Hotez’s scientific career centers on neglected tropical diseases, a group of infections that affect more than a billion people worldwide but receive relatively little funding or attention because they primarily strike communities living in extreme poverty. His research has focused on hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis, all conditions where existing treatments are either inadequate or nonexistent.
Hotez has championed what he calls “antipoverty vaccines,” a concept built on the idea that preventing these diseases doesn’t just save lives but can break cycles of poverty by allowing children to grow, learn, and develop without the chronic burden of parasitic infection. Through the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, his team has worked on developing vaccines for hookworm and schistosomiasis, among others. His broader argument is that eliminating these diseases will require not just mass drug administration but new vaccines integrated into treatment programs.
He co-founded the academic journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, which became a major platform for research on these overlooked conditions and helped bring global attention to the field.
COVID-19 and Low-Cost Vaccine Development
Hotez gained wider public recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic. His team at Texas Children’s Hospital developed CORBEVAX, a COVID-19 vaccine designed to be affordable and accessible to low-income countries. Unlike the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, CORBEVAX used a more traditional protein-based approach that could be manufactured without expensive technology. The vaccine received Emergency Use Authorization in India, where it was produced at scale. The development model was built around the idea that vaccine technology should be shared freely rather than protected by patents, making it possible for manufacturers in developing nations to produce it themselves.
Fighting Anti-Vaccine Misinformation
What sets Hotez apart from many scientists is his willingness to engage directly and publicly with anti-science movements. This advocacy has deep personal roots. His daughter Rachel was diagnosed with autism and intellectual disabilities at a time when false claims linking vaccines to autism were gaining traction. As both a vaccine scientist and the parent of an autistic child, Hotez felt uniquely positioned to address the misinformation head-on.
He published “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism” in 2018, a book that combined his family’s story with the scientific evidence debunking the vaccine-autism link. Writing it made him, in his own words, “public enemy number one with anti-vaccine groups,” but it also gave him direct insight into how those movements operate. He has described the false narrative connecting vaccines to autism as a thread that “is still out there and it hasn’t gone away.”
His 2023 book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning,” expanded his focus beyond vaccines to the broader politicization of science. In it, he traces how partisan politics, internet algorithms, and organized disinformation campaigns have created what he calls a global “ecosystem” capable of undermining scientific progress. He points to data showing that during the pandemic, COVID-19 death rates were significantly higher in heavily Republican counties, which also had lower vaccination rates. He estimates roughly 200,000 deaths in the United States were attributable to vaccine refusal. The book reflects a genuine alarm that political hostility toward scientists could trigger what he describes as a dark era for public health.
Awards and Recognition
Hotez has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on neglected tropical diseases and global vaccine access. In 2024, he received the John P. McGovern Science and Society Award from Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society, which recognizes scientists whose contributions extend beyond the lab to improve public understanding of science. That same year, Villanova University awarded him the Mendel Medal, given annually to outstanding contemporary scientists.
A profile in The Lancet described him as a “physician-scientist-warrior combating anti-science,” a characterization that captures the dual nature of his career. He is both a bench scientist developing vaccines for diseases most people in wealthy countries have never heard of and a public figure who has made confronting misinformation a central part of his professional identity. That combination has earned him recognition from scientific institutions and made him one of the most visible scientists in American public life.