Late last month, the Trump administration published a proposed rule that would set up a formal process for political appointees to review federal scientific and other grants. As the rule brings renewed attention to the politicization of our nation’s scientific agencies, we’d like to highlight one critical element of this: a shift to near-complete political control over communication about science.
We are former NIH program officials who resigned this past winter. Alexa served as deputy chief in the Prevention Research Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Sylvia was program director in the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute. In this essay, we share insights into the impact of censorship on the science and NIH decision-making processes and offer concrete actions that the academic community can take to defend science, truth and democracy.
We observed firsthand this administration’s ongoing suppression of the voices of scientists while increasing political appointees’ control over language and communication. This takeover includes centralizing staff communications, censorship of language by external researchers and attacks on research on health communication. As a community of academic researchers, we urgently need to stand up and safeguard our fundamental right to free speech.
