Trump administration forbids CDC officials from using 7 words and phrases
Quote:
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.
he 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 Donald Trump took office. Several key departments - including Health and Human Services, which oversees 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
The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to 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."
Kelly told the analysts that "certain words" in the CDC's budget drafts were being sent back to the agency for corrections. Three words that had been flagged in these drafts were "vulnerable," "entitlement" and "diversity." Kelly told the group she had been authorized to give verbal instructions about the remaining banned words.
I am so glad the Trump Administration Justice Warriors are giving thier departments a safe space from bieng triggered by diverse LGBT people(sarcasm).
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16 Dec 2017, 12:44 am
