In the wake of warnings that researchers who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases may face special scrutiny, complying with instructions from staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to cleanse grant application abstracts of potentially controversial terms appears a prudent course of action. After all, a quick document scan and a few minor wording changes seem like harmless compromises-but are they?

When the New York Times and Science broke the story of linguistic scrutiny at the NIH in May 2003, the list of offending terminology included "gay," "homosexual," "men who have sex with men," "needle exchange," "abortion," "condom effectiveness," and "commercial sex workers." Abortion being the hot-button issue in contemporary American politics, many words and phrases have been targeted for their association-real or imagined-to the "a-word."

In May 2002, at the United Nations Special Session on Children, the United States delegation protested the use of the phrase "reproductive health services," arguing that it connotes abortion. Allying itself with Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and the Vatican, the U.S. team pushed to remove "reproductive health services" from the final conference declaration.

Six months later, the topic came up again, this time at a United Nations population conference in Bangkok. There, the U.S. delegation threatened to withdraw from the Cairo Programme of Action-a cornerstone of international population policy since its adoption at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)-unless the terms "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" were removed.

In April 2003, the Vatican published a 900-page glossary of words and phrases the organization considers to be code for anti-Catholic sentiment. The Lexicon on Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms about Family Life and Ethical Questions expands the cloud of suspicion to surround not just abortion but sexuality in general.

The Lexicon discusses not only "reproductive health" and "reproductive rights," but also "safe sex" and "gender," which Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, director of the Pontifical Council for the Family, explains suggests "radical ideological feminism." The Lexicon states that "safe sex" "feeds a dangerous illusion and opens the way to perverse consequences" and concludes that there is no proof that condoms can prevent the spread of AIDS.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are already familiar with the kind of demands now being imposed on academic scientists. A January 2003 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cable directed all NGOs receiving any Agency funds for HIV/AIDS programs to review their websites to "ensure the appropriateness of the material."

All USAID-funded publications and programs should reflect "the policies of the Bush administration," the cable advised, and "activities and related communications" involving interventions in high-risk groups such as injection drug users and prostitutes "must be managed sensitively."

More recently, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios reportedly banned some NGOs who had been awarded USAID contracts from speaking directly with the media and threatened to cut off funding to humanitarian groups that inadequately promoted the fact that they receive U.S. funds. NGOs should consider themselves "an arm of the U.S. government," Natsios reportedly said, a standard that the Administration now appears to be applying to government-funded scientists as well.

But given the realities of grants and funding, what are those of us interested in promoting "reproductive health services," "human rights," and the health of "men who have sex with men" to do?

The first step is to recognize that scrubbing language is not a modest compromise, but more of a Faustian bargain. The second is to make a personal commitment to work just as assiduously in combating scientific censorship as in weeding out "controversial" text.

The current atmosphere exudes anti-intellectual overtones evocative of nothing less than book-burning. When "gender" and "safe sex" are considered subversive and research on decreasing HIV risk in vulnerable populations grounds for political scrutiny, the threat is not just to individual researchers working in controversial areas, but to the scientific community as a whole. Orwellian in its brazenness, scope, and ambition, the war on words threatens not only to curb speech but to stigmatize entire realms of thought.

Professional solidarity-standing together for uncensored speech and scientific independence-is needed now more than ever. Don't be fooled by a seemingly modest compromise. There is no place to hide: your intellectual discipline could be next.

Original link: http://www.arhp.org/editorials/september2003.cfm