National Academies is altering pending reports to appease Trump administration, some members say

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 organisation’s leaders and obtained by STAT. 

The National Academies, or NASEM, are widely seen as the nation’s leading science organisation and to many, its conscience. The organisation 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 healthcare 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. 

The letter specifically cited an upcoming report, “Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Behavioral Health Disorders” that was scheduled to be released in early February but has not been released and said that authors had learned that staff have been instructed to replace words in the report including the term “health equity.” That replacement of certain words, the letter states, appears “designed to appease the current administration.”

Removing the term equity was particularly upsetting to the letter’s authors. “Equity is a core part of NAM’s mission. Our understanding is that staff are being told that these terms are being deleted because equity is not a matter of science. Yet that term alludes to a core value to which we in medicine and public health are deeply committed,” the letter read. Stripping the term, the letter said, “goes against our values as members, the published principles of NAM/NASEM, and decades of scientific work on health inequities,” it continued. 

Read full story

Source: STAT, 20 February 2025