New Trump Administration Report Sets the Stage for Further Political Interference in Science

"Over the last year and-a-half, the Trump administration has systematically gutted federal science. Through 576 attacks on science, the administration has fired career experts, slashed funding and censored research. This has halted important research in its tracks, led to loss of critical institutional knowledge and has driven U.S.-based scientists to leave the country, taking their expertise elsewhere. Approximately 33% of those attacks- including political interference in scientific studies, censorship of federal scientists, disbanding advisory committees' experts and restricting the use of key public health data-are potential scientific integrity violations.

"Much of this assault has been carried out under the administration's 'Gold Standard Science' initiative, an executive order that cloaks political interference in the language of transparency while giving the administration a platform to suppress research it finds inconvenient. The plan, outlined in the recently released report, sets the stage for the Trump administration to take the United States even further down this dangerous path. The report lays out a future in which the administration continues to dismantle the nation's scientific capacity across a wide range of fields, replacing independent expert peer review with politically appointed decision-makers. The potential outcome is a loss of knowledge and expertise and the destruction of opportunities for that expertise to benefit the public good.

"At the same time, the report fails to adequately address the need for safeguards and protections, like scientific integrity, to ensure research is conducted without political influence or pre-determined conclusions.

"As the Trump administration continues to put cracks in the foundation of U.S. Science, UCS is watching and will keep sounding the alarm."