“Some of the most important choices about a nation’s physical health are made, or not made, by a handful of men, in secret.”
Sixty-odd years ago, the chemist, writer and civil servant Charles Percy Snow revealed in his book Science and Government the shocking extent to which science advice to governments during the Second World War had lacked evidence. As the world stands on the precipice of one of the worst infectious-disease outbreaks in a century, his observations are just as relevant today.
