Scientific censorship by governments
15 May 2023
Science is based upon truth. Scientists are obligated to honestly report their findings. This gives them, their institution and the scientific community credibility.
Scientists are not perfect. They may be wrong. They may be biased. Occasionally, they commit fraud.
But particularly troublesome is when scientists are pressured by their governments to lie, because scientists are not trained to resist this. Unfortunately, it is becoming more common and threatens the integrity of the scientific community.
Recently, the New York Times reported how the Chinese government has pressured its scientists to rewrite the COVID-19 story. This is ultimately self-destructive because it means that the scientific community and others can no longer trust scientific studies done in China, at least concerning COVID-19.
However, government pressure on scientists is not restricted to China. It has occurred and continues to occur in the United States.
The Trump administration regularly suppressed, downplayed, or simply ignored scientific research demonstrating the need for regulation to protect public health and the environment. The Biden administration has vowed to reverse course, but faces challenges in doing so due to the widespread assault on science led by former President Trump. The Trump administration's efforts to undermine science are documented in the Silencing Science Tracker, an online database, which records anti-science actions taken by the federal, state, and local governments. Drawing on more than four years of tracker data-from Trump's election to Biden's inauguration-we show that the Trump presidency fundamentally changed how federal government agencies perform, use, and communicate scientific research. Webb 2022
Source: Webb 2022
Trump officials regularly interfered with reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on COVID-19:
The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.
In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump’s optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation. Source: Politico
Paul Alexander, a top Trump appointee who repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19, uses red type (above) to call for inserting text and accuses CDC officials of trying to use the reports to undermine President Donald Trump. Source: Politico
Although the Trump administration is gone, state governments are still lying about COVID-19. Recently, Florida’s Surgeon General altered a COVID-19 vaccine analysis to suggest a higher risk of vaccine complications for younger men and Florida misrepresented data on COVID-19 deaths.
The public needs to trust scientists and physicians to tell the truth. Yet many red state governments are trying to force physicians to lie about abortion related issues. For example:
Through 2021, 14 states have passed laws forcing physicians to lie about the possibility of reversing the effects of abortion pills - these laws have no basis in scientific fact. This year, Kansas passed a similar law.
In Texas, a blogger has reported that doctors are being forced to report fake abortion ‘complications’ under threat of losing their jobs.
It is important for each one of us to:
Oppose government efforts to censor physicians and scientists or force them to lie and call out government officials who lie to the public about science.
Vote against public officials or political parties promoting this censorship or these lies.
Learn more about possible censorship and report possible incidents.
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Great reporting. We are starting to question the state of our democracy today. The US Supreme Court seems to be somewhat corrupt, the Republican Party is in a total state of disarray with the majority supporting Trump and his outlandish, unsupported lies, etc. . What kind of a country are we leaving for our children?