Trump Administration Ban On CDC’s Usage Of ‘Transgender,’ ‘Evidence-Based,’ ‘Diversity’ Causes Outrage

President Donald Trump banned the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from using a list of words, which include “transgender” and “evidence-based.” Needless to say, social media users did not take lightly to the president’s decision.

In a meeting, led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, CDC policy analysts, who are tasked with preparing the 2019 budget that is expected to be released in February, were handed out a list of words that were forbidden to use in official documents for the budget.

The mandate from the Trump administration banned the use of seven words – “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” “science-based.”

The news of the ban was originally reported by the Washington Post, which caused immediate outrage among Twitter users. Messages started flowing in on social media, condemning the president’s decision to ban scientific terms used by health organizations for ages.

So what are the analysts supposed to use when they want to say certain findings are “evidence-based or “science-based”?

The budget-preparers were specifically instructed to replace these banned phrases with the statement, “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

Almost all the analysts present on Thursday were surprised at the ban on scientific terms.

“It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’” one of the analysts said, “In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint.”

Another analyst told the Post it is highly probable all the health organizations have been handed similar mandates by the Trump administration. A blanket ban on the use of these terms could prove to be challenging for CDC – an organization which collaborated in the past with various health agencies to research on issues such as fetus development for the Zika virus and preventing HIV among transgender people.

Kelly told the analysts at the meeting she did not have sufficient explanation for why the administration decided to blacklist those seven chosen terms.

This is not the first time Trump has been accused of undermining the importance of scientific facts. The president was heavily rebuked for his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate deal in June – an accord that came into effect in November 2016 in an attempt to engage countries to take decisive steps to prevent the Earth from heating up any further due to global warming.

The deal was struck under the vision of former President Barack Obama, who agreed the United States would reduce polluting emissions more than a quarter from 2005 levels by the year 2025.

British Prime Minister Theresa May rebuked Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris deal, although she avoided taking the president’s name.

In her flagship address to the United Nation’s General Assembly in New York, May said: “As the global system struggles to adapt, we are confronted by states deliberately flouting – for their own gain – the rules and standards that have secured our collective prosperity and security.”

“And it is this rules-based system which we have developed – including the institutions, the international frameworks of free and fair trade; agreements such as the Paris Climate Change accord; and laws and conventions like the Non-Proliferation Treaty – which enables the global cooperation through which we can protect those values,” she added, Independent reported.