It has barely been a month and yet here we are. Trump is back in office for the second time and the scientific world has been plunged in chaos. While scientists across the world scurry to keep up with the wrath of the President’s executive orders, it is important to gauge the impact of a second Trump presidency on science. From political royalty RFK. Jr, environmental activist turned anti-vaxxer being the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to US pulling out of World Health Organisation (WHO) (for real this time) and the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) redacting countless journals containing terms related to gender identity; to say that the last few weeks of Trump presidency have been eventful is an understatement.
Trump pulls out
Starting off strong we have the United States (US) withdrawing from both the WHO and the Paris Climate Agreement, again. Despite the US being the second-largest annual emitter of planet-warming gases, the US claimed that international agreements such as this place an ‘unfair burden on the state and stifle the growth of the American economy’. Trump has revoked all financial commitments made by the US under the United Nations (UN) framework convention on Climate Change and frozen any funds towards any additional commitments under the convention.
Alleging mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UN’s part and their demand for onerous payment from the US with the other members contributing significantly less, the US has also withdrawn from WHO with all funds and resources being frozen and US personnel working with WHO being reassigned. Additionally, executive orders signed under the former Biden administration regarding effective COVID-19 response and promoting global health security led by the US were rescinded along with several other orders such, vaccine mandate for all federal employees, including dismissed military personnel who violated the mandate.
The withdrawal could potentially isolate the healthcare infrastructure of the country including federal agencies such as National Institute of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Given that the United States has been the largest financial backer for WHO, their departure could potentially jeopardise programmes tackling conditions like AIDS, tuberculosis and other health emergencies calling the withdrawal ‘the darkest day for global health’, a professor from Georgetown University said, ‘Trump could be sowing the seeds for the next pandemic’.
Following in the US’ footsteps, Argentina announced its withdrawal from the WHO saying that it would not let a supranational organisation dictate its healthcare system, and accused WHO of causing economic damage during COVID-19 pandemic by ”promoting endless quarantines.
Rescinding AI protection laws
Aside from being remarkable at pulling out so far the Trump presidency has also revoked former laws pertaining to safeguarding of AI-use in an attempt to bolster the American leadership. The initial order signed under the former presidency that was aimed at working on a basic framework to form AI protection laws and ensure their fair use both on the part of private organisations and the state was rescinded on the grounds of it limiting the potential of AI and its use under the Trump presidency. So far there has been no alternate regulation to mitigate the risks of AI use from the government.
Assigned Female by Trump
In-line with his far-right counterparts vowing to expunge “woke gender ideology”, however grim it may be, the presidency wasted no time in signing out a flurry of orders that have had a disastrous impact on trans-healthcare provision and research.
I did not intend for this particular section to be this lengthy; the details provided by the US Federal registry for these are by far the most detailed directives from all that I have read. It is not me, it’s them, they are more obsessed with me, or any of our genders far more than we are.
In an frankly hilarious move though, in his order titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, “Sex” is determined at conception, and “Female”, produces the large reproductive cell and “male” the smaller one. However, given the following conception, initially everyone is technically phenotypically female, thus decreeing that everyone is female under the laws of the United States of America, making Donald J. Trump the first female president of the country. Obviously the reality of sex and its associated biology is far more complex and nuanced, it is quite a funny thing to think about.
The more unfunny aspect of this could be an attempt to humanise a foetus by saying the sex is determined at conception, giving more credibility to pro-life grifters. The aforementioned order doubles down on the idea of two sexes, by compelling agencies to reject the idea of gender-identity, and redacting any documents with suggestions of such; and prohibiting federal funds and grants for ‘promotion of gender ideology’, which has led to subsequent freeze in NIH research grants.
A recent email sent to CDC scientists instructs them to remove references to mentions of a list of forbidden terms such as, Gender, transgender, LGBT, non-binary and so on. This move comes after an initial halt on CDC publication and press-releases following the beginning of the term. It is still unclear how many transcripts might be pulled, with a lot of them merely using the words to describe demographic information. The vagueness of the order has left the scientific community in chaos and fear, not knowing which articles do and do not count under this order, further hampering the progress of research. Additionally this act would essentially erase the mention of queer, transgender and intersex (QTI) individuals; this can already be seen as CDC purged a large number of web pages with terms regarding race, gender and the LGBTQ+ community – an act mirroring the book burning of Magnus Hirschfield’s collection during Nazi germany.
In an attempt to salvage vital health databases from CDC’s mass-archiving, scientists globally have been racing to backup any bit of research and databases that can be saved. Additionally Internet Archive (single-handedly the best website out there) supports the archiving of government web pages before they are replaced.
Restricting access to gender-affirming care to trans youth, another executive order states that the federal government cannot let medical professionals ‘maim and sterilise impressionable children’. In what is termed as ‘chemical and surgical mutilation’ ranging from puberty blockers to gender affirming surgery, all federal sponsorship towards healthcare for trans kids would be suspended. Labeling the World Professional Association for Transgender Health as lacking scientific integrity, the HHS has been ordered to take appropriate actions to expunge guidelines regarding provision of trans healthcare. This particular order goes into heavy and uncomfortable details of restricting healthcare access to kids, going to lengths of carrying out investigations into parents and organisations providing for any form of gender-affirming care.
It may seem as though the nature of my article is a little informal; but honestly, it is a form of coping mechanism. To say that the recent flurry of executive orders and their initial impact do not anger and frighten me would be lying. It is a sad truth of the world that we live in, countries often tend to follow in the steps of the US; case in point being the recent withdrawal of Argentina from WHO. While these executive orders do not affect me directly as I am not a citizen of that country, their impact on the international community, further bolstering far-right rhetoric within scientific communities is a terrifying prospect. Over the years the false illusion of the “American Dream” has not only been sold to its people, but also to the rest of the world, and while this facade fades slowly now, the potential damage that can be done within this unprecedented time frame is disastrous.