On December 15, the Washington Post reported that the White House sent the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a list of seven words [vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based and science-based.] it was forbidden from including in official documents for next year’s budget.
CDC director Dr Brenda Fitzgerald tweeted denial of any word ban
I want to assure you there are no banned words at CDC. We will continue to talk about all our important public health programs.
— Dr Brenda Fitzgerald (@CDCDirector) December 17, 2017
CDC has a long-standing history of making public health and budget decisions that are based on the best available science and data and for the benefit of all people—and we will continue to do so.
— Dr Brenda Fitzgerald (@CDCDirector) December 17, 2017
The confusion arose from “a staff-level discussion at a routine meeting about how to present CDC’s budget.
The list was presented during a 90-minute briefing on December 14 as part of a suggestion to use words and phrases that “might be more likely to win support for the CDC’s budget in the current Congress.”
The idea is that favorable word choice could help ease the budget’s passage through Congress.
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