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'Chaos and Fear' at CDC Amid Order to Retract Journal Articles to Purge 'Forbidden Terms'
"How can the government decide what words a journal can use to describe a scientific reality? That reality needs to be named," one journal editor said.
Feb 02, 2025
Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been ordered to pull any articles under consideration for publication in medical or scientific journals so that they can be checked for certain "forbidden terms" including gender, transgender, and LGBT.
The order was sent in an email to CDC division heads on Friday by the agency's chief science officer, a federal official toldReuters on Sunday. Inside Medicine broke the news on Saturday and provided a screenshot of the full list of terms that needed to be scrubbed.
"It sounds incredible that this is compatible with the First Amendment. A constitutional right has been canceled," Dr. Alfredo Morabia, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Public Health, told Reuters. "How can the government decide what words a journal can use to describe a scientific reality? That reality needs to be named."
"We can't just erase or ignore certain populations when it comes to preventing, treating, or researching infectious diseases such as HIV."
The order is an attempt to ensure that CDC is in compliance with U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order mandating that the U.S. government only recognize two sexes: male and female. The papers will be withdrawn so that a Trump appointee can review them.
The "forbidden terms" CDC employees are supposed to avoid are, in full: Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, and biologically female, according to Inside Medicine.
The order covers both papers under consideration and those accepted but not published. According to Reuters, if a CDC employee worked on a paper with nongovernmental scientists but did not initiate it, they have been asked to remove their names.
The new order is separate from a demand two days into the administration that government health agencies including CDC freeze all communications with the public. It follows reports on Friday that CDC webpages and datasets involving HIV, the LGBTQ community, youth health, and other topics were no longer accessible as the agency attempts to comply with the Trump executive order on transgender identity and another on banning government Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
"It is Orwellian, it really is," Steven Woolf, director emeritus and senior adviser at Virginia Commonwealth University's Center on Society and Health,
In response to the purges, scientists, science journalists, and public health advocates have worked to preserve the datasets, with everything on the CDC website as of January 27, 2024 preserved at ACASignups.net and downloaded data sets also available on Jessica Valenti's Substack Abortion, Every Day.
"Censoring data on ideological grounds is wrong. It is unscientific, and it is designed to eliminate opposition and erase dissidents," virologist Angela Rasmussen, who was involved with the data preservation efforts, wrote on social media.
The journal article retraction order has created uncertainty and confusion at the agency, Inside Medicine reported:
How many manuscripts are affected is unclear, but it could be many. Most manuscripts include simple demographic information about the populations or patients studied, which typically includes gender (and which is frequently used interchangeably with sex). That means just about any major study would fall under the censorship regime of the new policy, including studies on Covid-19, cancer, heart disease, or anything else, let alone anything that the administration considers to be "woke ideology."
Meanwhile, chaos and fear are already guiding decisions. While the policy is only meant to apply to work that might be seen as conflicting with President Trump's executive orders, CDC experts don’t know how to interpret that. Do papers that describe disparities in health outcomes fall into "woke ideology" or not? Nobody knows, and everyone is scared that they'll be fired. This is leading to what Germans call "vorauseilender Gehorsam," or "preemptive obedience," as one non-CDC scientist commented.
There are also concerns that censoring such a broad list of terms would have unintended consequences for public health.
"We can't just erase or ignore certain populations when it comes to preventing, treating, or researching infectious diseases such as HIV. I certainly hope this is not the intent of these orders," Carl Schmid, the executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, told Reuters.
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The Urgency of the 2024 Election for Black Voters of Faith
November 6 will be a critically important day for America. It will be the day after we saved democracy. Or it will be the day after we handed a match and gasoline to a madman to burn it down.
Oct 27, 2024
Near dusk late last month, under an awning in Jackson, Mississippi, we bowed our heads in prayer. Our group was diverse: Black, white, women and men, Northerners, Southerners, Midwesterners, persons hailing from the Pacific Northwest.
An Attorney. A Pastor. A Hip-hop artist. Baby Boomers. Generation-Xers. Millennials. And there was blood beneath our feet. The bloodshed was not new. Yet, its presence heightened our urgency.
On June 12, 1963, around midnight, a bullet entered Medgar Evers’ back, ripped open his chest, and invaded his home. Despite his mortal wound, Evers attempted to reach his front door, dragging his body on the ground. Myrlie, his wife, found him dying near the front steps.
When juxtaposed, Medgar Evers’ life of service and sacrifice stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric and current ideas for America.
Evers’ blood painted the pavement red. Pools of blood left stains. Over 60 years later, as a group of us from the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good prayed, those stains remained visible on the pavement.
Evers once said, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” While gathered amid bloodshed, it was painfully clear that we still have a long way to go to perfect our union. Still, Evers’ great hope, the idea that we can and that we must become a nation that makes the promise of democracy accessible to all, is an idea that lives on. It is the very idea that brought us to Evers’ doorstep earlier this fall.
While our journey to Medgar Evers’ home further heightened our sense of urgency to work to mobilize voters to vote for the common good in this general election, our urgency was already heightened as these are consequential times. America has a major decision to make. Either send Donald Trump, a man who does not respect the rule of law and who conspired to overturn our last election, back to the White House, or elect Vice President Kamala Harris, a proven public servant, who, when elected, would possess more day-one experience than any other president over the past three decades.
When juxtaposed, Medgar Evers’ life of service and sacrifice stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric and current ideas for America. After three years of distinguished service in the U.S. Army while fighting in during World War II, Evers returned home and graduated from Alcorn State, one of our nation's finest historically Black colleges and universities. Trump routinely diminishes the sacrifices of our military, labeling those who die in battle as “losers.” And Trump’s idea to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education would end federal student lending and crush the dreams of low-income students—especially Black and brown students—who seek a college education.
Evers fought to secure rights for and to protect and improve the lives of Black Americans. Trump’s nominated judges, including those now serving on our nation’s highest court, are rapidly overturning rights, from abortion rights (which since Roe v. Wade ended in 2022 has resulted in increased childbirth deaths per 100,000 Black women in Texas from 31.6 to 43.6) to affirmative action.
Tragically, during Evers’ funeral, Black mourners were beaten by police in the streets. Trump’s big idea for the police is to grant federal immunity from prosecution. Trump has also voiced support for returning to the days of stop-and-frisk, which terrorized Black and brown communities.
Conversely, Vice President Kamala Harris embodies many aspects of Evers’ life and ideas. Harris has already brought nearly $170 billion in student debt relief for almost 5 million borrowers. And Harris, an HBCU graduate, has provided significant support to HBCUs. Harris will sign the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to enshrine voting rights for all Americans as soon as it reaches her desk in the Oval Office. And it is important to remember that Sen. Harris introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to reform policing in America.
For Black lives, for the survival of democracy, the decision could not be any clearer. Yet, some are still undecided. If only they could have journeyed with us to Jackson, Mississippi, to bear witness to Evers’ blood, I believe they would have a moment of clarity.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.” November 6 will be a critically important day for America. It will be the day after we saved democracy. Or it will be the day after we handed a match and gasoline to a madman to burn it down.
At the end of our prayer there in Jackon, I looked again at the blood. Then I turned to depart with my colleagues to do all we can to honor Evers’ sacrifice. Most assuredly, to do this: Turn out the vote.
And, most assuredly, we must ensure that Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States of America.
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Small Town Libraries Don't Want Imported Book Bans
This National Library Week, support librarians by opposing censorship.
Apr 24, 2023
Growing up in Milwaukee, the local branch of the public library was always just a bus ride away. But when my family moved to central Pennsylvania when I was entering high school, we lived in a rural region that didn't even have a public library.
In the '90s, before the internet was widely available, the loss of a robust library system left me feeling cut off from the world. This is one reason I've spent the last 20 years living in a rural community, where I serve as library director for a school district.
After decades building resources and capacity in our small school districts, some of which don't even have a public library, it's been devastating to see the growing ferocity of attacks against our libraries over the past couple of years.
Our small town school districts and public libraries are facing immense pressure from national groups that turn massive external funding into fake grassroots outrage in our communities.
More than half of U.S. state legislatures have proposed or passed bills that would severely restrict access to information, threaten First Amendment rights, and punish entire communities by withholding funding critical library services—all for the sake of keeping books off the shelf that do not suit the taste of a few individuals.
Our small town school districts and public libraries are facing immense pressure from national groups that turn massive external funding into fake grassroots outrage in our communities. The grassroots origins are fake, but the outrage is very real.
The outrage we see on the news is not a reflection of our small towns: It's imported by groups that aim to overwhelm and tear down our public schools and libraries. Book challenges of yesteryear were often sparked by a child bringing home a single book that prompted parents' concerns. Today's attempts to ban books are overwhelmingly driven by externally generated lists.
According to the American Library Association, 40% of book challenges in 2022 involved requests to ban 100 or more books at a time. Most of these books were either by or about LGBTQ+ folks and people of color.
This outrage over diversity in literature does not reflect the increasing diversity in our small towns. According to the Housing Assistance Council, in 2018 there were more than 2,000 rural and small-town census tracts where racial and ethnic minorities made up the majority of the population. In another study, the Movement Advancement Project in 2019 showed that an estimated three million or more LGBTQ+ people called rural America home.
When censors come after books that reflect the diversity in a community, they're attempting to erase the stories of community members themselves.
School librarians like me strive to build diverse collections that bring the world to the shelves of every town and ensure that every reader finds their story. When readers find their own stories in a library, they read more and grow into lifelong learners.
Such robust collections are built through professional—not ideological—standards, and every student benefits.
Access to books that represent a variety of cultures and viewpoints may boost a student's development and well-being, according to a 2022 white paper from the Unite Against Book Bans coalition. Diverse books also cultivate empathy and provide a springboard for families to have meaningful conversations.
From coast to coast and across the heartland, Americans remain overwhelmingly committed to libraries, despite what manufacturers of moral panic may claim.
Recent polling shows large majorities of voters across party lines reject the idea of banning books from school and public libraries. Ninety percent of voters have high regard and trust for librarians, and similar percentages say that school and public libraries play an important role in their community.
As we move into National Library Week, I hope Americans will join me and 90% of our neighbors in supporting libraries and librarians—and in rejecting the manufactured outrage of book banning groups.
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