Since its launch on January 20, 2018, the Silencing Science Tracker has been documenting government efforts to restrict and prevent scientific research, education, and the publication and use of scientific information. We are proud to announce the launch of an improved version of the Tracker—a tool more critical than ever as the second Trump administration takes a chainsaw to climate, public health, and other areas of scientific research.
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched the Silencing Science Tracker 8 years ago as a comprehensive, accessible database of the many attacks on science during the first Trump administration. Entries date back to November 2016, when a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website was changed to remove references to climate change, the first of many similar moves to censor or alter established scientific findings in the post-truth Trump era.
We continued to maintain the database during the Biden administration and have been busier than ever adding entries in the first year of Trump 2.0. Now we have transitioned it to a new platform that’s easier to use and has added functionality, including enhanced search capabilities–something that is sorely needed, with the tracker now including over 700 entries and expanding every week.
Some of the new and upgraded features of the Silencing Science Tracker include:
- Enhanced tagging to make it easier to find specific information and identify larger patterns in the administration’s anti-science actions
- A more intuitive interface that provides an easier user experience for filtering, sorting, and analyzing results
- Improved search functionality, allowing users to easily find entries on specific topics or individuals
- Highlighting instances when public outcry, court losses, or other pushback have forced the administration to change course
It’s now clearer than ever just how widespread, and devastating, the second Trump administration’s attacks on science have been. While the Tracker has historically focused on attacks against climate scientists, the data make clear that the current assault is much broader, affecting research in all fields.
Interference in public health research has become so prevalent that we have added it as its own category. The appointment of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already had devastating consequences. Under his watch, the agency has fired thousands of federal scientists, terminated billions of dollars in grants, altered official government webpages to disseminate anti-vaccine and other propaganda, and installed sycophants in positions that are critical to our collective well-being.
While HHS makes up a disproportionate number of Trump 2.0 entries, the damage extends across the federal scientific infrastructure. Data sets, Congressionally-mandated reports, so-called controversial terms like “climate change,” and entire webpages have been removed from agency websites. Official federal agency reports pushing false claims about climate change and childhood diseases have been published (and, in both instances, immediately slammed by experts as relying on inaccurate or cherry-picked information to support an ideological objective).
The second Trump administration also paused or cancelled billions of dollars in federal grants for initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice, Covid-19 research, mRNA vaccine development, and medical research at U.S. universities, hospitals, and other institutions; cancelled funding for the Women’s Health Initiative (which RFK Jr. later called “fake news,” even as an agency spokesperson acknowledged its reversal); and halted funding for entire divisions like HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, which was eventually eliminated altogether.
As the 700+ entries in the Tracker make clear, attempts to silence science are not limited to the Trump administration (though his first and second terms account for nearly 500 of the entries). Critical, life-saving research and the people who perform it have been under relentless politically and ideologically motivated attack for decades, highlighting the need for continued vigilance and documentation.
The suppression of science isn’t just a political debate; it has very real and lasting consequences for public health, the environment, and democracy. With tools like the Silencing Science Tracker, we can ensure that efforts to undermine the scientific endeavor are documented, challenged, and ultimately stopped, and that those responsible can one day be held accountable.
Click here to visit the Silencing Science Tracker.
The Silencing Science Tracker is a joint project of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
Dana Willbanks
Dana Willbanks is the Communications Coordinator at the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF).
