Trump barred a top health expert from speaking freely about the coronavirus. It's one of many ways the administration has muzzled scientists.
As Hurricane Dorian barreled through the Caribbean on September 1, Trump incorrectly tweeted that the storm would hit Alabama. He later displayed a forecast map that had been doctored with a sharpie to include Alabama — information at odds with National Weather Service's prediction.
Following back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, last year, staff at the Department of Health and Human Services were told to get approval before posting anything on social media related to mental health, violence, or mass shootings.
Trump linked gun violence to mental illness at the time: "Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun," he said.
But research suggests Trump's comment was bogus. Mental-health issues are not predictive of violent outbursts: Although as many as one in five people in the US experience mental illness every year, people with serious mental-health problems account for just 3% of all violent crime.
In November, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule that would require scientists to make their data public to the agency before their findings could be used in EPA policy decisions about public health.
That would cripple clean air and water regulations, CNN reported, because those public-health policies are rooted in studies that utilize confidential health records or disclosures.
According to The New York Times, the proposal would also retroactively halt the further use of research already referenced by the EPA if scientists didn't make that data public (including confidential medical records).
When a Department of Agriculture scientist's 2018 research revealed that rising carbon emissions will make rice less nutritious, the Trump administration questioned the findings then tried to minimize media coverage.
The USDA not send out a press release about the research, and they also declined to give the researcher, Lewis Ziska, permission to do media interviews.
Ziska had worked at the USDA for two decades, but he left his post in 2019, according to Politico.
In March 2019, US Geological Survey research found that sea-level rise and flooding will impact 600,000 Californians and cause $150 billion in property damages by 2100. But the accompanying press release downplayed that information.
The press release accompanying the study didn't include the expected costs of rising sea levels at all.
"An earlier draft of the news release, written by researchers, was sanitized by Trump administration officials, who removed references to the dire effects of climate change after delaying its release for several months, according to three federal officials who saw it," E&E News reporter Scott Waldman, who broke the news, wrote.
One anonymous federal researcher reportedly told Waldman: "It's been made clear to us that we're not supposed to use climate change in press releases anymore. They will not be authorized."
"Climate change" isn't the only phrase the Trump administration has censored. Two years ago, the administration prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using the words "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based," and "science-based" in 2018 budget documents.
According to the Washington Post, CDC staff was told to use language like "science in consideration with community standards and wishes," in lieu of "science-based."
In 2017, Department of Interior officials deleted sections of a letter detailing how President Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico would harm wildlife.
The letter came from scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service and was sent to the Customs and Border Protection.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the letter brought up scientifically valid concerns about the potential impact of the border wall on endangered species that live along the border.
The National Park Service also muzzled employees last year.
The acting deputy director of the Park Service, David Vela, told workers last summer that they had to check in with their supervisors in the Capitol before commenting to other federal agencies on issues related to gas and oil drilling.
Critics of the memo said it was an effort to prevent park staff from voicing opposition to development and drilling on federal public lands.
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