CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity
The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.
The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
In March, for example, HHS dropped questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in two surveys of elderly people.
HHS has also removed information about LGBT Americans from its website. The department’s Administration for Children and Families, for example, archived a page that outlined federal services that are available for LGBT people and their families, including how they can adopt and receive help if they are the victims of sex trafficking.
At the CDC, the meeting about the banned words was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, according to the CDC analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. Kelly did not say why the words are being banned, according to the analyst, and told the group that she was merely relaying the information.
Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words.It’s likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these words, the analyst said.
At the CDC, several offices have responsibility for work that uses some of these words. The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities. The CDC’s work on birth defects caused by the Zika virus includes research on the developing fetus.
The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to the CDC’s partners and to Congress, the analyst said. The president’s budget for 2019 is expected to be released in early February. The budget blueprint is generally shaped to reflect an administration’s priorities.
Federal agencies are sending in their budget proposals to the Office of Management and Budget, which has authority about what is included.
Neither an OMB spokesman nor a CDC spokeswoman responded to requests for comment Friday.
The longtime CDC analyst, whose job includes writing descriptions of the CDC’s work for the administration’s annual spending blueprint, could not recall a previous time when words were banned from budget documents because they were considered controversial.
The reaction of people in the meeting was “incredulous,” the analyst said. “It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’?”
“In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint,” the analyst said.
News of the ban on certain words hasn’t yet spread to the broader group of scientists at the CDC, but it’s likely to provoke a backlash, the analyst said. “Our subject matter experts will not lay down quietly — this hasn’t trickled down to them yet.”
The CDC has a budget of about $7?billion and more than 12,000 employees working across the nation and around the globe on everything from food and water safety, to heart disease and cancer, to infectious disease outbreak prevention. Much of the CDC’s work has strong bipartisan support.
Kelly told the analysts that “certain words” in the CDC’s budget drafts were being sent back to the agency for correction. Three words that had been flagged in these drafts were “vulnerable,” “entitlement” and “diversity.” Kelly told the group the ban on the other words had been conveyed verbally.
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by Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin
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Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,”
In other words, "We will base our medical decisions on whatever the Evangelicals want..."
We have members here that think Dominionists are akin to Illuminati.
Dominionism is staring us in the face these days.
laughable. Dominionists represent less than 1% of Christians in this country
Dominionists represent less than 1% of Christians in this country
Yet they're among the more vocal and threatening to our liberties.
Dominionists are saturating the Trump administration.
I'm not aware of any Dominionists in the Trump Administration- Name one
And no, Rick Perry is not a Dominionist even though the left likes to call him one.
This is just more ignorance from the left.
I'd prefer to hear that we have eliminated not just the CDC, but the Department of Health and Human Services. There is no Constitutional Authority for this meddling into our lives
Those are issues for state and local governments and the people to determine, NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
James Madison who wrote most of the Constitution stated in Federalist #45:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
The Federalist is fine reading, but is NOT an indication of the FOUNDERS intent. For example, Federalist #84 is pretty specific to Hamilton's personally held beliefs, but does not speak to the FACT that the Bill of Rights was passed, and that it was enforceable upon the states.
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Yeah, because who cares about public heath or health research, right? >sarc<