News Analysis Senator Rand Paul’s (R.-Ky) question was simple: “Are you a doctor—a medical doctor?” asked Paul, a licensed medical doctor, at a hearing on Sept. 30. “I have worked over thirty years on health policy,” answered Xavier Becerra, who is secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “You’re not a medical doctor. Do you have a science degree? And yet you travel the country calling people ‘flat earthers’ who have had COVID, looked at studies of millions of people, and made their own personal decision that the immunity they naturally acquired is sufficient.” Paul was responding to Becerra’s claim, made during a Sept. 21 online forum, that “because some flat-earthers—especially those in places of influence—choose to peddle fiction, we’re losing more loved ones today than we were a few months ago.” Becerra had also asserted that “the harm caused by those who lack confidence in and denigrate …