News Analysis A Canadian academic says his doctoral thesis from 17 years ago is playing out today in real time, as medicine is being used to subvert democracy and create tyranny in the COVID-19 era. Travis Smith, now a political science professor at Concordia University in Montreal, earned his PhD at Harvard University in 2005 with a dissertation on early modern philosophy and the political significance of medicine. “I wrote a thesis about how medicine can be used to destroy liberal democracy. People like to think that medicine is not political, and that of course is not true. All powers are political, and medicine is a great power,” Smith said in an interview. Smith says that while luminaries like Sir Francis Bacon have envisioned a new humanity for centuries, technological advancements and the pandemic have given this agenda a booster shot. “Society, interpersonal relationships, the relationship between citizens and the state, …