CDC Word Ban Gets Panned
Medical societies decry what they saw as anti-science attitude.
This article first appeared on December 18, 2017 on MedPage Today.
By Molly Walker
Healthcare experts and major medical societies had choice words for a ban on certain words that top CDC officials were said to have imposed on forthcoming budget documents.
When the Washington Post reported on Friday that CDC policy analysts were told not to use seven words (“fetus,” transgender,” “vulnerable,” “diversity,” “entitlement,” “science-based” and “evidence-based”) in the documents, experts in public health and infectious disease, as well as several medical societies, did not hold back in their reactions.
Although CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, MD, tweeted that “there are no banned words at CDC,” and another official characterized the directive as “guidance” and “suggestions” meant to win favor in Congress, many outside the agency saw an anti-science agenda at work.
Jane Powers, interim CEO, Fenway Health, an interdisciplinary center for research, training, education and policy development focusing on national and international health issues, in Boston, characterized the restrictions as “deeply troubling” in a statement, adding that it does not matter whether it’s an “outright ban” or whether the list “originated as a strategy to gain support for the CDC among Republican conservatives.”
“Telling public health officials working to prevent Zika, HIV, and other diseases what words they can use is Orwellian. It is not what we expect to see in a democracy, and such policies — whether they are formal or informal — harm public health,” she said.
Daniel Grossman, MD, a clinical and public health researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, and director of a reproductive health research organization, tweeted that evidence-based researchers should be able to use words like “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “fetus,” and “transgender.”
“This should not be controversial,” he wrote. “If you had any doubt about the administration’s proclivity for ideology over science, here it is.”
Major medical associations were also quick to react. Karen Remley, MD, CEO, and executive vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics tweeted that “as a former public health official and a pediatrician, I am shocked by reports of banned words for @CDC” and added that “improving the health of children and adults requires frank, science-based discussions.”
The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the HIV Medicine Association, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society issued a joint statement saying that “censorship driven by political means vested in ideology rather than science threatens to disrupt a prime goal of government: protecting public safety.”
“No different than protecting our shores from military invasion or policing internal strife in our communities, loss of clear and impartial research and recommendations compromises the CDC and the work of other federal agencies,” the organizations wrote.”The impact of censoring science and scientists at the federal level will be serious and far-reaching, not only for the country’s health, but also trust in government itself.”
The Center for Inquiry (CFI), a non-profit educational, advocacy and research organization, issued a statement imploring the CDC not to sacrifice accuracy “nor the rights and dignity of transgender Americans in order to appease ideologues in Congress.”
“The mission of the CDC is to protect America from health, safety, and security threats, and science and evidence are the tools that CDC professionals use to learn what those threats are and how we can defeat them,” Jason Lemieux, CFI director of government affairs, said in the statement. “It is unacceptable that CDC officials would feel compelled by partisan interests to expunge all mentions of science and evidence.”