According to media reports, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been directed to stop using phrases that are vital to public health work in agency budget documents.
In response, Board Chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health Dr. Willie Parker issued the following statement:
“Regardless of the circumstances of the request, just the idea of suggesting that the CDC censor itself sets a dangerous precedent. Words are vital to public health. I received applied epidemiology training through the Epidemic Intelligence Service program at the CDC, and I can tell you that words and terms matter. A mentor in my research training once told me, “a question appropriately asked is 50 percent answered.” Preventing the use of words like “fetus,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “evidence-based” and “science-based” would make the studies conducted by scientists from the premier prevention agency in the country meaningless, because the research would be imprecise and the results would be unintelligible.
We demand that the administration stop trying to insert politics into science.
You can’t instruct medical professionals to avoid medical concepts—it would create chaos and, more importantly, the work they do would no longer be science. “Fetus” is an important and standard medical term, and, without it, communications between medical professionals would unravel and put patients’ care in danger. This would be a clear case of politics trumping medicine.
The Trump administration has shown a clear and dangerous pattern of trying to put ideology before science, for example, defining life as beginning at conception in the HHS Strategic Plan. We demand that the administration stop trying to insert politics into science.”