The Trump administration has banned the Centers for Disease Control from using seven words — diversity, evidence-based, entitlement, fetus, science-based, transgender and vulnerable — from all documents related to preparation of next year’s budget, according to The Washington Post.
Some of the words pander to the radical right and its view of issues like abortion. In order to push the idea that abortion is murder, a fetus would have to be referred to as a something like a baby in a mother’s womb, even when the research is to save the fetus so that it may be born as a healthy baby. For example, the CDC is doing research into the effect the Zika virus has on a developing fetus. While there might be other ways to describe the research, those words would be less accurate and distract from the point of the research.
“Transgender” can be described in other terms, but the agenda is to stop any research into gender identity or improve the health and save the lives of trans people. The same work can be described as research in gender identity or improving the health of people no matter how their gender assigned at birth differs from perceived identity. And if that’s what the CDC needs to do in order to continue its work, that’s what the CDC will do. And maybe just not using the word “transgender” will keep Bubba from understanding the science that’s being discussed.
Banning the terms evidence-based and science-based are pure right-wing religious crap. If the Bible don’t say it, it ain’t true. Right, Bubba? We ain’t discovered nothin’ since God done wrote that there Bible, and everything the entire world knows or needs to know is right there in that one book.
Author’s note: Sorry if anyone finds that last line offensive, but banning those words is offensive in my religious circle. I am an observant Jew, who has served on the board of his synagogue for almost 30 years and has served on the board of the Union for Reform Judaism for 10 years. So yes, I do get to weigh in on the stupidity of ignoring science in health-related government policy when it conflicts with an individual’s interpretation of a poor translation of the Bible. Actually, in my religion, we don’t see a conflict between religious belief and science at all, and we find it criminal to risk the people’s lives because of someone else’s extremely narrow religious beliefs.
Also in my religious belief, ignoring the health needs of the most — yes I’ll use the word — vulnerable people in our society completely conflicts with any religious value whatsoever. I never studied Jesus and only know what some friends have mentioned about what Jesus preached, but I’m pretty sure my view not only reflects Jewish values, but also those of Jesus and Christianity. And I assure you caring for the most vulnerable is a value shared by my Islamic friends as well.
I think that whole “suffer the children” (Matthew 19:14) thing wasn’t a suggestion on how to treat the most vulnerable. Read the rest of the sentence.
So what the hell are Trump and his administration thinking? Who are they pandering to? Oh, wait, a tax overhaul vote is coming this week that will divert billions of dollars from the middle class to corporations and their CEOs. Maybe that’s what this latest ridiculous diversion is actually all about.

— David Taffet