Scientific culture is built upon a foundation of fact. Facts born from the free exploration of data, through testing, trial and error. In a post-truth age, members of the global scientific and healthcare communities are concerned that this foundation is beginning to collapse.
A report published in February by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), entitled Standing up for science in the era of Trump decried recent policy changes within the United States as having the "potential to damage health".
Read more: What is the Paris climate agreement and who has signed it?
The BMJ report argued scientific policy should fundamentally work to create a world that is "healthier" and "stronger", one that "supports women's health... treats refugees and migrants with dignity and hospitality, and ensures that all people, especially the most vulnerable, have access to high quality healthcare".
The contributing authors, including Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, and Elizabeth Loder, the BMJ's clinical epidemiology editor, raised concerns over the "little value" placed "on facts or analysis" in recent administrative legislature, pertaining to science and medicine.
These concerns for science and medicine are growing more significant. Donald Trump has announced his decision to withdraw the United States' from the Paris Agreement - a move that is being met with mounting opposition from international leaders as well as states across America.
As a step away from the Clean Power Plan initiated by President Barack Obama, it marks a turning point for environmentalism in the US and can be seen to embody the straining relationship between the environment and economy expressed by those in fields of science and health.
Trump has yet to appoint a head of the Office of Science and Technology (OSTP), a post that traditionally acts as a science adviser to the President. Furthermore, the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology has seats that remain unfilled - with no sign of being filled. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said that "A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have.”
The question of utility is a recurrent one - and has slowly been shaping the face of science in America.
January 2017 saw a number of scientific organisations in the US receive orders limiting their transparency in terms of sharing research with the public. Peer-reviewed research can be made public, but only once it is cleared by the Office of the Secretary - the managing body of government that contributes to the formation of public policy. The organisations affected include the Department of Agriculture; Department of the Interior; Department of Transportation and the Departments of Health and Human Services.
The limitations imposed on scientific groups have caused concern among global research bodies about the integrity of work undertaken in fields that are "politically inconvenient".
The British Medical Journal states that the "[suppression of] research and [limited] communication" could harm the work being conducted in scientific fields, as work by certain departments may need to be "approved by political appointees before being presented or published".
Proposals to change the Food and Drugs Administration, limiting its ability to ensure proper drug efficacy, as well as the recent appointment of Scott Pruitt as leader of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have led to questions regarding the necessary divide between science and politics.
Gretchen Goldman is the research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Her work focuses on scientific integrity and has a special focus on the role that science will now play in the United States federal government. Her recent contribution to an article published by Science magazine stated that, in the face of political limitations, "the scientific community will need to connect science-informed policy to positive outcomes and staunchly defend scientific freedom".
Goldman told WIRED that the key to maintaining scientific integrity is to properly articulate the benefits science offers the public. The impact of scientific policy is "unseen" but vital to maintaining public health and wellbeing.
"No-one wakes up and thinks about products that are safe to use," Goldman says. "Scientists at the FDA making sure their food is safe, the EPA making sure their air and water is safe," these things are "at risk" when science itself comes under attack.
Scott Pruitt, recently appointed head of the EPA, has sued the very agency he leads - a total of 13 times.
A climate change denier with close ties to the oil and gas industry, Pruitt's nomination was met by more than 750 EPA employees and officials urging the US Senate to reject his candidacy. The future of the Environmental Protection Agency is itself up for speculation, after conjecture surrounding impending cuts to EPA funding.
When asked about changes to administrative bodies, Goldman described these latest changes as "concerning".
"Look at who is being appointed to federal agencies - some have very little background in the area they are working in. In some cases, they are directly from the industry that they are going to be charged to regulate - that's concerning from a level of appointing people to agencies that are openly hostile to the agency."
Goldman warns that cutting the EPA budget by a large amount would drastically impact how organisations maintain "air and water quality". Furthermore, the repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act, with a replacement yet to be defined, poses a problem for another aspect of public health - the process of providing healthcare with no infrastructure yet in place.
Goldman adds that the distinction and interplay between science and politics is an area that needs stronger definitions.
"The level of control... [exerted] on government agencies and science conducted there - gag orders stopping federal scientists from communicating with the public, freezes on hiring and grants and contracts. It disrupts science both in and out of the agency," she says.
Every President in the United States' history has politicised science in some way, but the Trump administration's limitations upon research and publishing practises have been criticised as being more stringent than previously seen.
"Some of those freezes are not unusual - a new administration wants to come in and reassess policy position. But so far what we are seeing is atypical," Goldman asserts.
In response to the increasing politicisation of their fields, many scientific groups are now raising a call to action.
"We can't stay in our labs without engaging any more - there's a lot at risk when it comes to science's place in our society - there is a lot we can do as individuals, collectively through societies and other groups." Goldsmith says, "We need to stand up for science... and make sure [it is] protected."
This article was originally published in February 2017 and has been updated to reflect recent events.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
