Speaker 1: Tonight, NBC News has obtained a memo ordering that all
Speaker 1: references to quote gender ideology be removed across the federal government.
Speaker 1: The deadline was about an hour and twenty minutes ago
Speaker 1: at five pm Eastern Time, and.
Speaker 2: The CDC is cutting off all communications with the World
Speaker 2: Health Organization effective immediately. The movers to comply with the
Speaker 2: executive order President Trump signed last week withdrawing the US
Speaker 2: from the WHO.
Speaker 1: The CDC website on youth LGBTQ mental health was up
Speaker 1: and running January twenty third, but if you look today
Speaker 1: you get a message that reads the page you're looking
Speaker 1: for was not found.
Speaker 3: Right now, there's a note to the top of all
Speaker 3: web pages for the US Centers for Disease Control. It
Speaker 3: says this website is being modified to comply with President
Speaker 3: Trump's executive orders. Thousands of pages across US government websites
Speaker 3: were also taken offline as they were scrubbed for mention
Speaker 3: of gender, race, sexual orientation, and other terms the Trump
Speaker 3: administration have banned. And this is just the start of
Speaker 3: the Trump administration's attack on science. Donald Trump's flurry of
Speaker 3: executive orders science since coming into office also threaten the
Speaker 3: funding of any research projects they consider to promote quoke
Speaker 3: gender ideology. From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is
Speaker 3: seven AM Today. Science journalist and contributor to the Saturday
Speaker 3: paper Bianca no Grady on America's ideological war on science
Speaker 3: and the implications for Australia. It's Wednesday, February twelve. So Viianka,
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that you can help me unpack the impact
Speaker 3: of Trump's orders and understand the situation right now because
Speaker 3: so many organizations are affected in different ways. So to
Speaker 3: begin with, can you tell me about the situation at
Speaker 3: the Centers for Disease Control.
Speaker 4: It's chaos, I think is probably the only word I
Speaker 4: can think of. So the Centers for Disease Control, it's
Speaker 4: the leading national science based organization for public health. So
Speaker 4: its job is to track disease outbreaks, to collect data, to.
Speaker 5: Analyze that data, to look at the who, what, why, how, all.
Speaker 4: Of that of any diseases, and they look at not
Speaker 4: just what's happening within the US, but beyond its borders.
Speaker 5: So globally. It's particularly important at the moment because.
Speaker 4: We've got bird flu or H five N one in birds,
Speaker 4: which in the US has also spread into dairy cattle,
Speaker 4: into cats, into foxes, and into humans. And at the moment,
Speaker 4: it's not spreading between humans, but it's an evolving situation,
Speaker 4: and it's a situation that has global implications. So a
Speaker 4: whole heap of that data is being pulled off the
Speaker 4: CDC website. They've been hit with the communications blackout, so
Speaker 4: no public communications, no public speaking coming out of any
Speaker 4: one at the CDC. The Trump administration has told federal
Speaker 4: health agencies to pause external communications that include scientific reports
Speaker 4: and health advisories.
Speaker 5: The CDC at thea.
Speaker 4: That extends to all of their publications, and the most
Speaker 4: important of which is called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Speaker 6: According to a copy of the data obtained by The
Speaker 6: New York Times, the CDC pulled a part of the
Speaker 6: report that said some cases of bird flu had infected
Speaker 6: cats that in turn infected humans.
Speaker 4: Scientists are banned from traveling, so they're not able to
Speaker 4: attend meetings, meet with collaborators.
Speaker 5: It's just, I mean, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 4: This is a resource that, particularly during the pandemic, so
Speaker 4: many people around the world relied on, from journalists to
Speaker 4: doctors to politicians, and it's just it's vanishing in front
Speaker 4: of our eyes, Like it's inconceivable how much of a
Speaker 4: resource that is and how devastating its loss is going
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 3: And the CDC is not the only body in the
Speaker 3: US affected. What else is happening?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, we've seen the attack on transgender healthcare.
Speaker 4: We sort of knew that this was coming, but I
Speaker 4: think it's still so deeply shocking to see an executive
Speaker 4: order from the Presidential Office issued the day he was
Speaker 4: sworn in, which was about defending women from gender ideology
Speaker 4: extremism and restoring biological truths to the federal government. It
Speaker 4: will henceforth be the official policy of the United States
Speaker 4: government that there are only two genders, male and female.
Speaker 4: That's led to a memorandum that came out of the
Speaker 4: Office of Personnel Management which talked about that they have
Speaker 4: to review all.
Speaker 5: Agency programs, contracts, and grants and terminate any that promote
Speaker 5: or inculcate gender ideology.
Speaker 7: Key resources for health care providers are gone. Information about
Speaker 7: gay and bisexual men and transgender people are gone. Pages
Speaker 7: on racial disparities and HIV are gone.
Speaker 4: All research papers that have been submitted for publication and
Speaker 4: peer review journals are being retracted so that they can
Speaker 4: be flagged for.
Speaker 5: Terms including gender.
Speaker 4: Any clinical study is going to reference gender because you
Speaker 4: have to look at the sex and gender of your participants,
Speaker 4: for example, to determine if they if they respond differently
Speaker 4: to a drug based on their sex and on their gender.
Speaker 3: So it's fair to say this is ideological rather than scientific.
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, they're absolutely ideological. The Trump administration would like
Speaker 4: to assert that there are only two biological sexes, which
Speaker 4: is male and female, and that assertion is wrong. It's
Speaker 4: actually scientifically incorrect. It's outdated, and it's dangerous. It ignores
Speaker 4: decades of research, and it ignores decades of work that
Speaker 4: has gone into actually trying to incorporate sex and gender
Speaker 4: into medical research that's vital for public health.
Speaker 5: And the idea that you can.
Speaker 4: Simply rewrite biology and make this political ideological assertion, that's
Speaker 4: one of the really what seems to be one of
Speaker 4: the leading crusades that's going on here in terms of
Speaker 4: science and medical research.
Speaker 3: Right, And so, how is this crusade impacting the scientists themselves?
Speaker 3: What is happening to them?
Speaker 4: A lot of people are really concerned because one of
Speaker 4: the executive wards was a freeze on all grants coming
Speaker 4: out of US government, and that extended to all agencies
Speaker 4: and particularly obviously captured the National Institutes of Health and
Speaker 4: the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 5: And so for five days there were quite a.
Speaker 4: Few scientists in the US who were not able to
Speaker 4: access their own paychecks.
Speaker 2: Lucien and has learned that the Trump Whitehouse has rescinded
Speaker 2: its freeze on federal aid. It comes up for widespread
Speaker 2: confusion and conflicting messages on who would have been affected.
Speaker 4: The freeze has been temporarily lifted. But how long that's
Speaker 4: going to last is anyone's guess.
Speaker 7: A federal judge said that President Donald Trump violated his
Speaker 7: order that lifted a blanket freeze on federal spending and
Speaker 7: again directed the administration to release the funds.
Speaker 1: So the big question here ONMNA is does the Trump
Speaker 1: administration comply with this judge's order?
Speaker 3: I asked the White House. They didn't answer that question.
Speaker 5: The scientists themselves.
Speaker 4: They're just trying to keep on doing what they need
Speaker 4: to do until they're told otherwise, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: the thing with scientific and clinical research is it's not
Speaker 4: like you can just stop it and pick it back
Speaker 4: up again in three months.
Speaker 3: Time.
Speaker 5: If you lose a cell line.
Speaker 4: Or if you've got specially bred engineered mice and you
Speaker 4: lose those, I mean that can terminate an entire study,
Speaker 4: That can through years of research out the windows.
Speaker 5: So I think, really.
Speaker 4: What scientists are doing and what they have to do
Speaker 4: is just keep going, just keep turning up to work,
Speaker 4: you know. And there's a big effort underway that's being
Speaker 4: led by a scientist in the US to essentially rescue
Speaker 4: a lot of that information in those databases and make
Speaker 4: it online somewhere else so that it's safe from destruction.
Speaker 5: Who knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: After the break, how Australian medical research could be under threat,
Speaker 3: so Bianca. There's still a lot of confusion on exactly
Speaker 3: how Trump's executive orders will affect federal grants and loans
Speaker 3: for health and science research. But the White House Press
Speaker 3: Secretary is saying that a review to eliminate spending on
Speaker 3: woke ideology will proceed. So let's talk about what that
Speaker 3: means for us here in Australia. How could that impact
Speaker 3: research done here?
Speaker 4: Well, it's it's a global impact because the US is
Speaker 4: such a scientific and medical research powerhouse. The National Institutes
Speaker 4: of Health, for example, is the single biggest public funder
Speaker 4: of biomedical research in the world.
Speaker 5: So Australia gets.
Speaker 4: Probably somewhere between twenty and thirty million dollars worth of
Speaker 4: grants from the NIH every year.
Speaker 5: There's also the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 4: There's also research funding that comes to Australia from the
Speaker 4: Department of Defense. So all of these institutions have temporarily
Speaker 4: frozen some of those grants, although there is some legal challenges.
Speaker 5: To that, so that's sort of a little bit of
Speaker 5: a movable feast.
Speaker 4: We do know that, for example, Vick Thompson, who's CEO
Speaker 4: of the Group of Eight, which represents Australia's eight leading
Speaker 4: research intensive universities, they are getting advice around grants that
Speaker 4: they've received from the US. There's going to be direct
Speaker 4: effects on scientists in Australia who are funded by these organizations,
Speaker 4: but there.
Speaker 5: Will also be indirect effects on.
Speaker 4: Their collaborators and this might lead to large scale clinical trials,
Speaker 4: halting of new drugs. Studies that have been running for
Speaker 4: decades might suddenly just go dark because lead investigators based
Speaker 4: in the US might suddenly not be able to access funding.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's very chaotic, and I think the impression
Speaker 4: I get from the Australian scientific and medical research community
Speaker 4: is they're very concerned. And we do have researchers in
Speaker 4: Australia who are funded by institutions like the NIH in
Speaker 4: one case specifically to look at an issue that does
Speaker 4: relate to transgender health care.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me about that and who you spoke to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Professor Aida Cheung, who is based at the
Speaker 4: University of Melbourne. She's co lead on a project that's
Speaker 4: looking at how gender affirming hormone therapy affects the immune system.
Speaker 4: So obviously the face of it, that's really important for
Speaker 4: transgender health care, but it's also really important for everybody
Speaker 4: because we are all hormonal creatures and hormones have huge
Speaker 4: impacts on the immune system. And you know, Professor Chung
Speaker 4: has as far as I know, has not received any
Speaker 4: information yet about what's happening with that grant, but that
Speaker 4: is an ongoing grant from the National Institutes of.
Speaker 3: Health, so she must be concerned.
Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 4: I mean I think you know, anybody working in transgender
Speaker 4: healthcare right now is concerned not just about what's happening
Speaker 4: in the US, but even what's happening in Australia in
Speaker 4: terms of.
Speaker 5: Attacks on transgender health care here.
Speaker 4: So this is part of a broader and a bigger
Speaker 4: ideological war that's been going on for a long time.
Speaker 5: It's just Trump has really stepped up the beat.
Speaker 3: And so if Trump's attack on sciences continue in the US,
Speaker 3: what do we need to be doing here in Australia
Speaker 3: to protect research.
Speaker 5: Well, I think we need to fund it better Australia.
Speaker 4: I mean the number of times I hear people say
Speaker 4: Australia punch is above its weight, and it does.
Speaker 5: For the amount of funding we receive.
Speaker 4: We do incredibly well on the world stage with science
Speaker 4: and medical research, but we really need more funding. So
Speaker 4: we need to be more independent with our science and
Speaker 4: medical research funding. We are in the process of setting
Speaker 4: up our own centers for disease control. That was one
Speaker 4: of the recommendations that's come out of the COVID pandemic
Speaker 4: is we need to have a resource like the CDC
Speaker 4: that's here that's focused on the public health of Australians.
Speaker 4: So I think this really turbocharge is the need for that.
Speaker 5: Science.
Speaker 4: It's a human endeavor and we are all operating in
Speaker 4: a political environment. Science funding is highly politicized in Australia
Speaker 4: as well. But I think the great thing about science
Speaker 4: is it comes down to evidence.
Speaker 5: It comes down to the facts.
Speaker 4: To what the tests tell you, to what the surveys
Speaker 4: tell you, to what the studies tell you. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think within Australia we really have to hold the line.
Speaker 4: We have to hold the line against the return of racism,
Speaker 4: of sexism and misogyny, of transphobia, of queerphobia. We have
Speaker 4: to hold the line against that coming into our science
Speaker 4: and medical research. It was there for a long time
Speaker 4: and it's taken a lot of progress and a lot
Speaker 4: of effort to really address those bias.
Speaker 5: In particularly in medical research.
Speaker 4: And we just have to keep looking at those facts
Speaker 4: and pull the line against this ideology coming out of
Speaker 4: the US and stop it taking root here.
Speaker 3: Bianca, thank you for your time.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Also in the news today, I just spoke to him,
Speaker 3: very fine man and he has a surplus. President Trump
Speaker 3: called Prime Minister Albanezi a quote very fine man.
Speaker 5: After the Prime.
Speaker 3: Minister made the case for Australia to be exempt from
Speaker 3: Trump's twenty five percent tariffs on steel and aluminium. Trump
Speaker 3: said he would give quote great consideration to exempting Australia
Speaker 3: from the trade restrictions, despite already signing the executive orders
Speaker 3: that claimed the tariffs were without exception or exemption. And
Speaker 3: the ABC has withdrawn one of its arguments in Antonetta
Speaker 3: Tufe's unlawful termination case. The Troop's lawyers argued that race
Speaker 3: played a role in their decision to terminate her casual
Speaker 3: position at ABC Radio Sydney. In response, the ABC's lawyers
Speaker 3: had initially tried to argue there was no such thing
Speaker 3: as quote Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race. At the
Speaker 3: start of Tuesday's hearing in the Federal Court, the ABC
Speaker 3: updated its defense to accept those races exist. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 3: This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.