September 15, 2020 10:47 AM EDT
In a scary and dramatic shift away from normal, the entire process for publishing CDC reports on COVID-19 has been upended by political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for reasons that appear to be entirely political, Politico reported late last week.
September 3, 2020 2:03 PM EDT
In the US to date, more than 185,000 people have died due to COVID-19—many times in pain, unable to breathe, and separated from their families. Many of these deaths, which disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities, could have been prevented if governments had made different public policy choices. And yet at every stage of the pandemic, some federal and state governments have chosen to sideline science and policy choices based on science. Read more >
August 3, 2020 9:00 AM EDT
Suppressed studies. Muzzled scientists. Disbanded scientific advisory committees. These are some examples of the gross violations of scientific integrity that the Trump administration has carried out during its 3½ years in power. At the Union of Concerned Scientists, we have been tracking these attacks on science since day one and our tracker has now hit a new, grim milestone – the Trump administration has so far engaged in more than 150 attacks on science, far exceeding the attacks recorded during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Read more >
July 16, 2020 5:35 PM EDT
The White House this week ordered the CDC to stop collecting data on COVID-19 illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. Instead the administration will collect and filter the data through a third-party contractor hired under questionable circumstances by the Department of Health and Human Services. Incredibly, as part of this change the data may no longer be available to the public in a timely manner. Read more >
July 14, 2020 9:13 AM EDT
Today, UCS launched a new online resource with tips on how to spot and stop the spread of disinformation around COVID-19. Disinformation (intentionally false or misleading information) is especially dangerous when it happens during a public health crisis. Its spread can undermine the recommendations of public health officials, for example, making people less likely to take science-based precautions that protect their health and diminishing their trust in expert guidance. Read more >
