February 1st Has Come and Gone, US Science Remains Censored

Remember what happened last time we tried to ignore Scientists? The problems don't disappear, they kill Americans.

White flags are seen on the National Mall near the Washington Monument in Washington, DC September 2021.

This article serves as an example of the direct and near-immediate consequences of ignoring US Scientists and Medical professionals: “As U.S. COVID deaths near 1 million, advocates press for a memorial day.” - By Tamara Keith/NPR

A quote from the article calling for a national memorial day to the now 1.5 million Americans lost during the pandemic reads as follows:

"We will be able to teach our children, our grandchildren and future generations about this moment in time, about our pain, about what happens in a public health crisis, about what is lost and who is lost."

But will we be able to teach them?

As the new administration bulldozes decades of scientific research it’s now unclear what we will have left to teach.

The ban on health agency communications was supposed to be lifted February 1st, this has not occurred. Published scientific research is being forced to be retracted, thousands of webpages across multiple agencies remain offline, grants are being flagged for very simple language that would even impact particle physics and basic mathematics, and global health programs are being shut down ensuring increased disease spread which will certainly come home to roost in the United States.

Limited communications from agencies such as the FDA and CDC have started to trickle out. However, according to an article from NBC news,

“Andrew Nixon, HHS’ director of communications, wrote in an email Tuesday that “several types of external communications” are no longer subject to the pause, and that “all HHS divisions have been given clear guidance on how to seek approval for any other type of mass communication.”

Nixon did not clarify what he meant by “external communications.”

As the article goes on it appears that external communications are still subject to review. Also NIH scientists have been allowed to resume closed door meetings but are not allowed to speak to the press or present data from their research publicly. This could mean that NIH scientists are now able to resume grant review, but this has not been confirmed. Having taxpayer funded NIH research blocked from public view while it is unclear who is reviewing the scientific literature, their qualifications, or their motives in reviewing them is highly problematic in scientific research which is rooted in transparency.

The Centers for Disease Control hosts a massive website that serves as a resource for Physicians, Scientists, and the public. The New York Times is reporting that 1,000s of pages across numerous government websites have disappeared, an estimated 3,000 scrubbed from the CDC alone. MedPage Today has reported that terms such as gender and pregnant person are being scrubbed from all CDC publications, research papers, and websites.

CDC is also being forced to retract previously published research that contains any of the following words:

Regardless of how people feel about these words, they allow for accurate communication about groups of people in the scientific realm. Elimination of these words decreases scientific accuracy, and paves the way to an erasure of people.

When the initial reports of CDC pages disappearing were reported I did a simple one word search on the homepage “HIV”. On February 1st this search retuned over 650 webpages (noted here in my update). Today, February 5th, the same search returns 207 references to “HIV”. Hundreds of references and documents are now missing.

Changes to CDC websites have happened before. I’ve used data from the CDC for over two decades, especially as a researcher looking for trusted references to demographics and infection rates. What is different about these changes is that when CDC changes to webpages occurred before the pages would be left up but noted as ‘archived’. Changes were clearly documented such that a paper trail and the reason for the changes was clear for all to see.

Now we have forced changes that bring into question the scientific integrity of what is being published.

I chose HIV as a search term because this is a very real virus that is a threat to global health, there is also a fraught social history around recognizing and treating this disease which impacts some populations more than others.

As the federal government defunds global aid that supports prevention of HIV/AIDs we will nearly immediately see a resurgence of the disease. I expect to see an increase in HIV infections begin in about 6 to 8 months in the United States. There is often a lag in HIV diagnosis from time of infection so it will take years for this data to come forth, if it is allowed at all. While this defunding is occurring demonization of one of the least expensive and most effective prevention measures for HIV spread, distribution of condoms, by our current administration brings to mind snickering middle school boys, not adults in charge of a country and concerned with the safety and health of it’s citizens.

Over 400 pages with the term “HIV” have been removed from the CDC’s website. Prior searches where I used the term “HIV” returned over 600 pages and citations (February 1st, 2025). Today when I run the search only 207 were shown.

The surge in global HIV that will occur, combined with the shutdown of American scientists ability to study and communicate about the very populations it will first impact is a global pandemic by government design.

Along with NIH and CDC, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is also being censored.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has also received lists of words that can not be used in their grants and research. A researcher has leaked these words to the public and this is the list I have found circulating online, I want to be transparent in that I can not identify the source, but here it is:

Aside from the ridiculousness of this entire exercise, cultural heritage and and black people do not cease to exist just because you delete the words. When words are deleted what happens is scientists are kneecapped from doing accurate research in a multitude of fields.

For example, words like ‘barrier’ are used in research addressing everything from agricultural science to animal behavior. Community diversity is an important phrase that is applied not only to studying human health outcomes but environmental science.

In a post under Hacker News on the Y Combinator site one commenter makes a great point as to how not only biological sciences and health sciences are impacted, but even particle physics research would be flagged by the new executive orders targeting science and research grants managed by the National Science Foundation.

“In particle physics we usually use these terms which will be at any proposal. This is an interesting textbook definition of false positives when you have list that is using too common words.

- Minimum "Biased" data

- "Discrimination" or "Discriminatory" variables

- Phase space "excluded"

- "Inclusion" of data/variable/anything

- "inequality" -> wow bell's inequality and all this theory work about inequalities will be triggered”

In data set analysis the term biases is used constantly, ‘institution’ covers entire fields of research, the word minority can refer to any population from animals to terms in a mathematical equation.

For example, as simple google search for ‘minority terms’ in mathematics returns the following

“A minority term (for an algebra or variety) is a 3-variable term q(x, y, z) such if two of the variables are equal, its value is the other one; that is, q(x, x, y) ≈ q(x, y, x) ≈ q(y, x, x) ≈ y.”

Are we great yet?

The censorship being leveled against United States Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math is driven by wildly uneducated ideologies that will leave America and American scientists unable to compete or even communicate on the world stage.

At best some of these terms will be allowed to be used in some context, but at what ultimate cost to the taxpayer? To the global scientific community? Pretending something doesn’t exist through erasure and control of language does not make it disappear, this is the anthesis of science, it is juvenile magical thinking.

I remember being shocked by a statement to the effect of “If we don’t test, we won’t have high cases” made by Trump during the explosion of COVID-19 in the United States. It appears the same logic is now being blanket enforced across all of American Science.

I don’t know how Science done in the United States will be taken seriously going forward.

Are we great yet?