As the Biden-Harris administration comes to an end, efforts to preserve federal webpages and information are ramping up. As I shared in a previous blog post, the End of Term Archive is one such effort, led by non-profit organizations and academic institutions to safeguard and make accessible the information that was available on US government websites during each administration.
Archiving federal information and data is necessary exercise during all transitions in administration, but it feels even more urgent now in the shadow of what we observed during Trump’s first term.
Removal of science-based information from federal webpages
To put it plainly, the first Trump administration rejected and distorted scientific information to protect corporate profits, and rolled back critical science-based climate and environmental protections. This was seen not only in major regulatory and executive actions, but also in the language used on federal websites. As I shared previously, a report by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative found that the first Trump administration changed and/or removed information on federal websites related to issues like water pollution and climate change approximately 1,400 times. One-fifth of these changes were made to webpages related to regulations, and half of these involved removing information from agency websites, like fact sheets and guidance documents.
The public relies on federal webpages for science-based information, and their tax dollars pay for this scientific work to be done on their behalf. When that information is removed or altered, it not only leaves people less informed, but it can also threaten public health and safety.
Public health data were concealed
The coronavirus pandemic vividly illustrates this hostility to science. There were many politically-motivated efforts to hinder COVID-19 research and response efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including concealing data that was once on the CDC website showing the number of people tested and number of deaths. There were also instances of tampering with the content and publication of CDC reports. At the pandemic’s outset in March of 2020, White House officials ordered certain science-based information to be removed from a CDC plan to control the spread of the virus. Political appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS), which oversees the CDC, also tampered with and downplayed language in CDC publications on COVID-19 and attempted to halt publication of numerous studies.
This blatant interference with the work of federal scientists and efforts to downplay the severity of the virus, which killed more than one million Americans, can erode the public’s trust in science. A Johns Hopkins opinion survey showed a link between doubts about science and lower support for social distancing. Studies have shown that misinformation contributed to vaccine avoidance, mask refusal, and use of unproven medications, which led to a higher rate of preventable deaths. Suppressing information can cost lives.
UCS will continue to protect scientific integrity and public access to information
Unfortunately, as our Attacks on Science database shows, there are more than 200 examples of scientific information being censored, altered, or distorted on during Trump’s first term. These actions often went beyond just removing information or data from federal webpages, but disappearing information is an early warning sign, and efforts to maintain a “snapshot” of what is currently on government websites can provide us with a benchmark to compare with.
While I cannot look into a crystal ball to know what the incoming Trump administration will target, we might expect information related to climate and environmental justice to be under threat. Furthermore, I’m deeply concerned, if disinformation promoter and vaccine opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed to lead HHS, about the vaccine and other public health misinformation that may emerge. Alongside a troubling trend of social media corporations like Meta ending factchecking programs on Facebook and Instagram, it is increasingly important that groups like UCS and our partners continue to work to preserve and protect access to public, science-based information.