Attacks on Science

Updates to this feature are currently paused as we assess the best way to monitor and expose the large number of attacks on science that we're seeing from the current administration.

Science is at the core of a healthy democracy. But for years, presidential administrations have, in differing ways, sidelined scientific evidence and attacked scientific integrity.

Below is a running list of attacks on science. They include disappearing data, silenced scientists, suppressed studies, and other assaults on science-based policy. The list provides a representative sample of threats to the federal scientific enterprise—and a warning of what we face in the future. More information can be found in our peer-reviewed study and in our data repository.

Attacks on science

Agency Topic Administration

Political Pressure Sidelined HHS Efforts to Increase US Breastfeeding Rates

Department of Health and Human Services, bowing to political pressures, restricted important public health messages about breastfeeding from reaching Americans on at least two occasions.

Abstinence-Only Sex Education Curriculum

Federally funded abstinence-only programs use curricula that contain false, misleading or distorted information about reproductive health.

CDC Experts Prevented from Presenting at International AIDS Conference

US scientists lost a valuable opportunity to communicate and collaborate with researchers around the world when the Bush administration’s decided to drastically limit its participation in the 2004 International AIDS Conference in Bangkok.

Timber Industry ‘Gets What They Want’, Birds Don’t Get What they Need

Department of Interior tampered with and ultimately reversed the findings of government biologists regarding the threatened status of the marbled murrelet

HHS Seeks Right of Approval Over Experts on WHO Health Panels

In April 2004, the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a new policy requiring that an HHS official approve all experts participating on UN scientific panels, including the World Health Organization.

Press "Minders" Required at Scientists’ Interviews

Federal agency public affairs offices have used "minders" --officials who are assigned to listen in on scientists’ media interviews -- to enforce media policies more restrictively over some climate change scientists.

Forest Brochure Misrepresents Science to Promote Logging Initiative

In 2004 the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) exaggerated the impact of forest fires on spotted owl habitat in an attempt to expand old-growth logging in the Sierra Nevada.

Fogarty International Center Advisory Board

Qualified nominees to the advisory board of NIH’s Fogarty International Center were rejected by the Bush administration for political reasons.

Selenium Standards Misinterpret Key Research

In late 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new selenium standards that scientists say are much too high.

Political Appointee Edits Science on Greater Sage Grouse

Julie MacDonald, a deputy assistant secretary of the interior with no background in wildlife biology, changed the scientific content of a report examining the vulnerability of the greater sage grouse, a highly threatened ground bird of the American West.

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