Dr. Carl Sagan predicted a “Demon haunted world” with a rejection of the enlightenment of science and return to superstition and darkness. We are seeing this right now with the re-emergence of diseases like measles due to falling rates of immunization, the erosion of trust in science during the Covid-19 pandemic fueled by misinformation coming from public institutions, and the increasing cases of HIV when eradication of this disease seemed within our grasp. And with the elimination of hepatitis B vaccine at birth in the US and other childhood vaccines in jeopardy, the lives and health of all children will be at risk. This interview with three remarkable doctors shows us that science is the candle in the dark giving us hope for the future.
Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, Dr. Victor Leung and Dr. Julio Montaner.
Dr. Lyne Filiatrault is a retired emergency physician. On March 7 2003, her ED team quickly isolated Vancouver’s first SARS patient, shielding Vancouver from a major SARS outbreak. A past member of Protect Our Province B.C., she is now part of the Canadian Aerosol Transmission Coalition.
She is a co-author of the May 2025 Canada Healthwatch article titled “ Measles doesn’t care about your politics”.
Dr. Julio Montaner holds the UBC and St. Paul’s Foundation Chair in AIDS Research. He is a UBC-Killam Professor of Medicine, the Executive Director and Physician-in-Chief of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and UNAIDS Special Advisor on HIV Therapeutics from 2014 to 2017. Dr. Montaner played a key role in the development and implementation of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) as the modern standard of care for HIV disease. He then pioneered Treatment as Prevention® (TasP®) using HAART to simultaneously stop progression to AIDS and death, and HIV transmission. Based on his TasP® strategy, he proposed the 90-90-90 by 2020, followed by the 95-95-95 by 2025 Target that was formally adopted by the UN in 2015 to “End HIV/AIDS as a pandemic by 2030”.
Dr. Victor Leung: is an Infectious Diseases Physician and Medical Microbiologist. He has medical expertise in preventing and controlling hospital acquired infections, and implementing programs to optimize antimicrobial utilization. He is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC.
