Medical journal editors must resist CDC order and anti-gender ideology
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 …
