STAT+: National Academies is altering pending reports to appease Trump administration, some members say
Words such as “health equity” are being replacing with vaguer terms, and 100 members sent a letter of protest to NASEM leaders.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is scrubbing pending reports of words such as “health equity,” “marginalized populations,” and “restorative justice” and replacing them with vaguer terms in an effort to appease the Trump administration, according to a letter protesting the actions sent to the organization’s leaders and obtained by STAT.
The National Academies, or NASEM, are widely seen as the nation’s leading science organization and to many, its conscience. The organization has been responsible, over the past two decades, for creating and publishing some of the nation’s most seminal reports on health disparities, such as the 2003 report Unequal Treatment which unequivocally stated that racism within health care was one driver of the nation’s health disparities.
The letter, signed by 100 of the academy’s members, said those signing the letter were “deeply disturbed” by the accommodations and said they understood the academy was “taking unilateral action to remove specific words or concepts from pending reports” and such “excessive anticipatory censoring” impacted the scientific rigor and integrity of the reports. Many NASEM reports are a year or more in the making and require the time and expertise of academy members, who are considered leaders in their fields.
