President Donald Trump / AP
By David Boddiger / 12.16.2017
Comedian George Carlin had his list of “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” It was one of his more popular monologues and it attacked the ridiculousness of censorship with laughter.
But those were words one couldn’t say in a broadcast, such as shit, piss, and fuck. Now, the Trump administration is taking censorship to a new Orwellian level by further suppressing science and prohibiting one of the nation’s top health agencies from using the following words and phrases: “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “vulnerable,” and “entitlement.”
According to The Washington Post, policy wonks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were given the list of forbidden words and phrases on Thursday and told they are not allowed to use them in any official documents related to next year’s budget.
The report also notes that Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, has removed information about the LGBTQ community from its website. This is all part of the Trump administration’s push to politicize and censor various federal agencies while ignoring science and further dividing the nation.
The Post notes:
At the CDC, the meeting about the banned words was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, according to the CDC analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. Kelly did not say why the words are being banned, according to the analyst, and told the group that she was merely relaying the information.
Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words. It’s likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these words, the analyst said.
Because the CDC is tasked with leading the nation’s efforts at preventing and controlling disease, the banned words and phrases will affect the programs that use them, including work in the field of HIV/AIDS and Zika virus control, among others, the newspaper said.
According to the Post’s source, an analyst, this is the first time this has happened at the agency, and fellow analysts were “incredulous” upon hearing the order.
Loren Schechter, director of the Center for Gender Confirmation surgery at Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, told HuffPost that the Trump administration continues to attempt to walk back civil rights gains made in the country.
“I’m not sure what the ultimate rationale is for doing this aside from trying to erase certain types of people off the map,” he told HuffPost.
The reaction on social media to the news was swift and angry, with Planned Parenthood tweeting that, “It’s clearer than ever: this administration has disdained women’s health, LGBTQ people, and science since day one.”
Originally published by Splinter News under a Creative Commons license from Gawker Media.