Political Correctness infects the CDC

essentialsaltes

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The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation's top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including "fetus" and "transgender" — in any official documents being prepared for next year's budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based."


What does Trump have against evidence and science? Oh, right.

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of "science-based" or "evidence-based," the suggested phrase is "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes," the person said.

Oh Spiffy!

'The facts are these, but the community wishes that tr*nsg*nd*r people didn't exist, therefore to spare the feelings of the community, we recommend ignoring those-people-that-we-aren't-allowed-to-talk-about.'

People whine about Political Correctness when it's about calling people by a name they prefer, but this is straight up politically motivated government censorship.

People whine about Moral Relativity when it's about, I dunno, being nice to gay people, but this is straight up having the government make medical decisions based on community feelings rather than the evidence.
 

Silmarien

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What does Trump have against evidence and science? Oh, right.

Well, to be fair, evidence and science are pretty ethically neutral, so if you're making recommendations, you do need to discuss them in combination with actual human value judgments. Otherwise you could use evidence and science to promote eugenics.

...which with this administration, may yet happen.
 
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archer75

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I don't know who expected anything else.

The guy at the rudder is...rudderless. Those who are nominally on his team are going nuts fleecing people and buying themselves some talking points for their base. No one's driving.
 
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Quid est Veritas?

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Evidence-Based is jargon from Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). I quite frankly cannot see how any medical organisation or regulatory body worth its salt can fail to refer to it.

Similarly Foetus, else how are you supposed to refer to an unborn human? It is a medical term related to foetal circulation and physiology being a bit different, it is only in the popular sphere that it becomes a battleground between baby and foetus. I doubt most doctors really make such a big hoopla over the inherent implicated meaning of the distinction. A foetus is merely an early form of the human organism.

Science-Based is much less relevant in a Medical sphere, though. Generally recommendations from Infective Diseases departments should not be impacted much thereby. They are generally made via EBM, not from scientific investigations, which tend to be far more generic, less structured, and tend to run afoul of ethical constraints.

Unfortunately, when we are not dealing with the purely organic, a lot of factors come into play. In Psychiatry, if something is normal within the population, it is not treated as aberant - so a Pentocostal speaking in tongues is not mentally ill, but someone else would be; or a hallucinating shaman or sangoma is not considered schizophrenic.
This is very relevant in our current Transgender situation. A few years ago when I was working in a Psychiatric hospital, I diagnosed people with Gender Identity Disorder - today, due to Psycho-Social factors, this diagnosis would not be made.
Similarly, we had homosexuality considered mental illness a hundred years ago, or 'uppity women' being labelled as suffering from the disease Hysteria.

What is or is not considered a disease, considered Pathology, is determined by the society one finds yourself in - especially in the spheres of Mental Illness, Psychology and Social work. It is there where these recommendations seems to be aimed at. I doubt anybody would object at the use of Evidence-Based or Science-Based in a Pneumonia recommendation.

So this really has nothing to do with Science, Medicine or Medical Science outside a few narrow cases. This is about culture, about allowing voluntary abortion or not, allowing Euthanasia, normalising Transgenderism, etc. These things have precious little to do with Evidence, but more with psychosocial cultural trends. Data can be interpreted in different ways.

I don't know what they were specifically told at the CDC, but if interpreted correctly, ommiting such terms may be sage advice in order to keep it out of political and cultural squabbles. Otherwise it may be an attempt to mire them in it...
 
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TLK Valentine

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Donald prohibits the CDC from using words that trigger him.. we should probably praise his restraint that he stopped at seven.
 
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cow451

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Fetus has always been a problem for President Trump. When Ivana was pregnant Trump went with her to the OB visit. The doctor mentioned Ivana’s fetus. Trump threw a tantrum about the doctor expecting Ivana to buy lunch for the doctor and office staff.

Think about it.
 
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Desk trauma

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Fetus has always been a problem for President Trump. When Ivan was pregnant Trump went with her to the OB visit. The doctor mentioned Ivana’s fetus. Trump threw a tantrum about the doctor expecting Ivana to buy lunch for the doctor and office staff.

Think about it.

Buh dum tssshhh...
 
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essentialsaltes

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Is this real news or fake news? Is there any documentation? Is there any named individual who says this happened?

No, but WaPo has confirmed with several (anonymous) CDC sources. And we do have the name of who allegedly delivered the ban.

At the CDC, the meeting about the banned words was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency's Office of Financial Services, according to the CDC analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. Kelly did not say why the words are being banned, according to the analyst, and told the group that she was merely relaying the information.

Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words.
 
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Goonie

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So it's a directive to all CDC staff that was mysteriously never written down, and which no named person will confirm?
And future documents, statements from the CDC will confirm as to the truth of this. Admittedly it’s a lot of work to check on the veracity of this story, volunteering?
 
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essentialsaltes

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The ban only applies to budgetary matters. It didn't go to all CDC employees.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget.

The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to the CDC's partners and to Congress, the analyst said.
 
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TLK Valentine

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The ban only applies to budgetary matters. It didn't go to all CDC employees.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget.

The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to the CDC's partners and to Congress, the analyst said.

Still raises the question: Why?
 
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rambot

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The Centre for DISEASE Control can't use the word "vulnerable" or "science based" or "evidence based"? That's just dumb.

I'd like to put a moratorium in place where politicians can't use the words "taxes", "motion", and "bill".

Now go do your jobs.
 
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rambot

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Is this real news or fake news? Is there any documentation? Is there any named individual who says this happened?
Oh I'm sure some second rate flunky, partisan news paper will put out an opinion piece saying something like, "That didn't really happen. I mean, of course it didn't...".
 
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