By Julie Steenhuysen and Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking to withdraw all papers involving its researchers that are being considered for publication by external scientific journals to allow for a review by the Trump administration, a federal official told Reuters.
The sweeping order came in an email from the CDC’s chief science officer on Friday addressed to all division heads at the agency, the official, who has seen the email, told Reuters. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The review is aimed at removing language to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order saying the federal government will only recognize two sexes, male and female. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.
The withdrawal order, first reported by the Inside Medicine Substack, goes beyond an initial directive on Jan. 21 that federal health agencies pause their own public communications to allow for a review of those materials by Trump appointees.
Inside Medicine published a list of specific words targeted for removal in the communications review, including gender, transgender, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and nonbinary. The federal official said that such a list went out from CDC to its divisions.
The Friday withdrawal order involves all manuscripts written or co-written by CDC scientists. If CDC scientists are co-authors on a paper that originated outside of the agency, they are asked to take their names off the paper, the official said.
Public health experts said the removal of such terms threatens their ability to address all kinds of medical needs as they affect different groups, including those with HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.
“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,” said Carl Schmid, an advocate and executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute.
Editors of scientific journals, including the American Journal of Public Health, questioned the legality of the move. For scientific papers that have been accepted by a journal but not yet published, “we have the copyright. The author can no longer make changes,” said Dr. Alfredo Morabia, Editor in Chief of the AJPH.
For papers under review but not yet accepted by a journal, “a collective response is warranted from journal editors and publishers. There should be some common strategies,” he said.
“It sounds incredible that this is compatible with the First Amendment. A constitutional right has been canceled,” he said. “How can the government decide what words a journal can use to describe a scientific reality? That reality needs to be named.”
“This is a travesty,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, chief section editor for HIV/AIDS for NEJM Journal Watch Infectious Diseases, said in an email.
“CDC scientists publish every year important work that informs the field of public health. Stopping publications is never good,” he said.
On Friday, the CDC and other U.S. health agencies took down web pages on HIV statistics and a database tracking behaviors that increase health risks for youth, among other information, to comply with Trump administration orders on gender identity and diversity, raising concerns among physicians and patient advocates about censorship.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Nancy Lapid; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Diane Craft)
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