Cancelled surveys, suppressed publications, hidden data: the Trump administration is continuing to hack and slash its way through the entire enterprise of science within the federal government. Between January 20th to September 30th of this year, there have been 506 attacks on science. (We broadly define attacks on science as actions, statements, or decisions that undermine, co-opt, or ignore science in the federal government.)
If you’re thinking “that seems like a lot”—you’re right. UCS has been tracking attacks on science for over two decades. And although we’ve recently updated our methodology, we did so to capture this increased rate of attacks. This is certainly more, and more intense, than what we’ve ever seen before, even by comparison to the unprecedented first term of the Trump administration.
Here’s a snapshot of the attacks on science that we saw during the month of September. (For those who came here to find out more about how they can help protect federal science during this moment, you can skip to the bottom of the page; I’ve included links and resources towards this end.) While it’s not a comprehensive list of every unsettling incident, I hope this summary—as with others I’ve written—serves as an illustration of the dangerous pattern of anti-science actions we’ve seen since Inauguration Day. These attacks have real implications for you and me, for our communities, and for our planet. When political, corporate, and ideological actors interfere in federal science, people get hurt.
Shutting out the facts
September saw multiple instances of political interference in federal scientific studies. As the adage goes, only what gets measured gets managed—and across the Trump administration, political appointees are, in practice, dodging their responsibility to solve problems by undermining the tools and research used to monitor those problems.
- Despite Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims that he wanted to investigate diet-related and chronic illnesses, the Department of Health and Human Services neglected to publish a federal study showing the harmful effects of drinking alcohol (like its connections to developing cancer).
- The Department of Agriculture canceled an annual survey it falsely claims had become “politicized” that provided regular data on food insecurity across the country (and put the scientists who conducted it on administrative leave). This marks the first time in 30 years—following two years of rising food insecurity and amid recent funding cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—that the U.S. will be in the dark on food security data collection and analysis. (For more on this very chilling attack on science, read my colleague Karen Perry Stillerman’s recent blog post.)
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics, recently on the receiving end of the President’s vitriol for releasing an inconvenient jobs report, indefinitely delayed the release of an annual report on income and employment.
- The Department of Homeland Security canceled its regularly updated Global Trends report that highlighted, based on intelligence analysis, predicted threats to national security for the next four years. In the most recent edition, published four years ago? The global threats of COVID-19 and climate change.
And, of course, the work of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to be a central target of this brutal campaign. Just look at the EPA’s Office of Water to see this pattern in action.
Cutting off the information flow
The EPA ordered some of its scientists to stop publishing their research. Moving forward, research that comes out of the Office of Water at EPA will be subject to additional review by political officials. In practice, what this means is that EPA scientists in this office are no longer allowed to submit their scientific studies to peer-reviewed scientific journals without having a political appointee review them first.
Historically, the EPA’s Office of Water has regulated drinking water, recreational bodies of water (like lakes and oceans), wastewater, and marine habitats. In very simple terms, this office helps keep our water healthy to drink, safe to swim in, and habitable for aquatic animals and plants. We all rely on water every day, so these programs are critical to everyone’s health and safety. The scientific research they sponsor ensures their work is up to date and that they can protect us from dangerous and emerging threats, like lead and PFAS. (More on this in a moment!)
If you’ve been reading my other posts, you’ve heard me speak at length about the dangers of political officials taking control of federal scientific processes. This includes political officials being given authority over preventing political interference in agency research and reviewing federal grant applications, among other things. The directives put on the Office of Water raise the same red flags.
First, enforcing an additional review process of scientific research that EPA scientists would otherwise publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals is, in itself, a problematic development and threatens to undercut the scientific merit and expertise of those who work in the Office of Water.
For context: reputable scientific journals, on their own, employ a stringent peer-review and editorial process to ensure the methodology, analysis, and reasoning behind submitted studies are sound enough to contribute to the collective scientific knowledge on a topic. I should also add that these scientific studies are being developed, finalized, and reviewed by experts in their respective fields of study. In other words, these studies already go through multiple rounds of scientific review before being published in a journal.
The additional level of oversight, though, risks putting loyalty to President Trump and the administration’s priorities over any scientific considerations. To reiterate, this administration has created a list of terms that are banned or require additional scrutiny (like “sustainability,” “diversity,” “pollution,” and “transgender”), and targeted topics inconvenient to its agenda (like the well-established association between fossil fuels and climate change). Political leaders have attempted to gut studies, programs, and funding that have any perceived association to these topics. Appointing political officials to this oversight role is so alarming because the Trump administration has consistently committed anti-science actions and has made policy decisions that wildly conflict with the best available science.
Take, for example, the attacks on PFAS regulation in waterways. Within the Office of Water’s jurisdiction is any scientific inquiry, testing, and monitoring of harmful substances in water, including “forever chemicals,” or PFAS. PFAS are a group of synthetic chemicals that are very difficult to break down, both in human/animal bodies and in the environment. They have been shown to have a variety of serious health impacts.
The Trump administration is actively suppressing scientific information and changing policy that regulates PFAS in drinking water. For example, in recent months, EPA has delayed the release of a finalized assessment that summarizes the harmful effects of a certain type of PFAS (PFNA), like liver and reproductive health damage. It also recently requested a federal court to effectively weaken regulations on PFAS, which, if approved, would mean that fewer of these chemicals would be removed from drinking water moving forward.
Placing political officials in charge of reviewing scientific studies before the public and scientific community can see them risks independent science being buried, altered, or otherwise politicized. And when we’re talking about things like the harmful effects of PFAS or other chemicals in waterways, there’s a real chance that this change will hurt people, animals, and our planet.
Staying engaged
All hope is not lost. In the midst of all these attacks on science, there are organizations who are fighting for the protection of federal scientists and their work, groups continuing to advocate for the health and safety of people and the planet, and people, just like you, who want to help. Here are a few ways that you can help us defend federal science:
- Currently, in the House of Representatives, there’s a bill (with bipartisan support) called The Scientific Integrity (SI) Act. It would codify protections against political interference into law, making scientific integrity protections universal across all federal agencies that fund, conduct, and oversee scientific work. In other words, it would better prevent political appointees or elected officials from burying, altering, or censoring scientific reports and messaging inconvenient to their agenda. This would include all those scientific agencies I named earlier that were directly attacked by political officials in September. If you think that protecting science from political interference is important, please urge your Congressional Representatives to co-sponsor the SI Act. You can contact your Rep easily using this link.
- Is there a federal scientist in your life? We’ve compiled a list of resources for them that help them know their rights, protect themselves from attack, and connect them with community. Send them our Resources for Federal Scientists.
- Stay up to date on any other SI related action using this link. From one science fan to another, there will be more events coming up soon that you can get involved in.
- Make sure that you’re taking care of yourself too. Have you had any water today? Maybe it’s time for a snack?
- Sign up for email updates to stay up to date on all of the hard work being done by experts across UCS. There are also often additional ways to help and get involved shared in those emails.