The Trump administration has ordered scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the nation's premier science institutions, to scrub their website and publications of "forbidden words." This editorial from the British Medical Journal affirms the nature of science and scientific publications.
Medical journal editors must resist CDC order and anti-gender ideology
BMJ 2025;388:r253 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.
- Jocalyn Clark, international editor,
- Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief
The news that on 31 January 2025 the Trump administration instructed scientists employed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to withdraw or retract articles from medical and science journals is sinister and ludicrous. The instruction, from Sam Posner, the CDC’s associate director for science, said that the order was for publications that included “forbidden terms” such as gender, transgender, LGBT, or transsexual, and applies to submissions that have not been accepted yet and accepted papers that have not yet been published.12
This move is part of the Trump government’s attempt to purge mentions of “gender.” The instruction follows days of vanishing CDC websites and datasets related to a range of vital health topics including immunisation, race or ethnic diversity, contraception, sexually transmitted infections and HIV treatment, and sexual and reproductive healthcare.3 It is unclear if and when these webpages and datasets will be restored, but if they do reappear, they will likely be sanitised. Clinicians, researchers, and patients will be harmed by the muzzling and removal of critical health information and data. Sex and gender data are highly relevant and essential for understanding differences in populations and among individuals—in their health experiences, treatment response, and outcomes.4
The email to CDC scientists contained a script for employees to use when contacting journals that reads: “Consistent with the President’s Executive Order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, I am removing myself as a coauthor from this submission.”1 If all authors were CDC scientists, they were instructed to “retract” submitted articles before publication.1
This is not how it works. Medically relevant terminology and inclusive language follow evidence based reporting standards or are matters of individual journal style and policy. They do not follow political orders. Similarly, co-authors cannot simply scrub themselves from articles. Authorship gives credit and accountability for the work, and an article’s list of authors does not ghost contributors. If authors wish to withdraw submissions under review at a journal, this process is feasible should all of their co-authors agree. However, if somebody who merits inclusion in the authorship group of an article requests to be removed, even with the approval of the co-authors, this is a breach of publication ethics.
Authors are entitled to withdraw a paper from consideration at any point before publication in a journal, but those data should still be published and not censored. Guidelines exist for reporting on sex and gender, and these best practices are adhered to by researchers and journals.4
Medical journals, including The BMJ, do not retract published articles on demand. We will not retract published articles on request by an author on the basis that they contain so-called banned words. Retraction occurs in circumstances where clear evidence exists of major errors, data fabrication, or falsification that compromise the reliability of the research findings.5 It is not a matter of author request.
Publication ethics and professional standards define the work of medical journals, editors, and researchers. These are safeguards of best scientific practice and integrity—and will not yield to bad practice like gag orders, suppression, and authoritarian whims.
It is absurd that the scientific record be treated with such disregard. It is egregious that a country’s public health agency, or any government authority, should demand the erasure of any terminology, particularly medically relevant terminology. This amounts to the censorship of scientists, breach of rights to free expression, dehumanisation of LGBT individuals, and indifference for the American taxpayers and human beings worldwide who support CDC’s research and have a right to expect that the findings are shared.
Make no mistake—this instruction is not about defending women or women’s rights, as the Trump Executive Order implies. It is part of a broader complicity of this US government and other political and religious conservatives with anti-gender ideology that seeks a return to fundamentalist values. Exceptionally well funded, well connected, and growing globally, the anti-gender movement actively opposes pro-equity efforts,67 threatening women’s sexual and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and gender equality—and thus health—worldwide. Gender is being dangerously weaponised. Like Trump’s censorship of CDC scientists, journals and editors must resist this too.
The US was considered a world leader in public health and research. With one repressive stroke that reputation risks being shattered and broken. If anything is forbidden now, it is that medical and science journals, whose duty is to stand for integrity and equity, should bow to political or ideological censorship.
Footnotes
- Competing interests: None declared.
- Provenance and peer review: commissioned, not externally peer reviewed.
References
Mandavilli A. CDC scientists ordered to withdraw studies that use terms such as LGBT or pregnant people. NY Times. 1 Feb 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/live/
- Faust J
. CDC researchers ordered to retract papers submitted to all journals. https://www.medpagetoday.com/
Frieden J. CDC purging its website after Trump orders. https://www.medpagetoday.com/
- SAGER guidelines
COPE Council. COPE guidelines. Retraction Guidelines. 2 November 2019. https://publicationethics.org/
- Saini A
. Confronting the anti-gender movement. Lancet2024;403:1128. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)
- Datta N
. Tip of the iceberg: religious extremist funders against human rights for sexuality and reproductive health in Europe 2009-2018. Brussels, 2021.
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