"micromanagement at the highest level" NCI employees cant publish information on these topics without special approval Communications involving controversial, high profile, or sensitive topics will get extra scrutiny. Annie Waldman and Lisa Song, ProPublica Mar 10, 2025 7:07 pm | 44 US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 26, 2025. Credit: Getty | Jim Watson US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 26, 2025. Credit: Getty | Jim Watson Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThis story was originally published by ProPublica.Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed controversial, high profile, or sensitive topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies, autism.While its not uncommon for the cancer institute to outline a couple of administration priorities, the scope and scale of the list is unprecedented and highly unusual, said six employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. All materials must be reviewed by an institute clearance team, according to the records, and could be examined by officials at the NIH or its umbrella agency, the US Department of Health and Human Services.Staffers and experts worried that the directive would delay or halt the publication of research. This is micromanagement at the highest level, said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.The list touches on the personal priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has repeatedly promoted medical conspiracy theories and false claims. He has advanced the idea that rising rates of autism are linked to vaccines, a claim that has been debunked by hundreds of scientific studies. He has also suggested that aluminum in vaccines is responsible for childhood allergies (his son reportedly is severely allergic to peanuts). And he has claimed that water fluoridationwhich the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th centuryis an industrial waste.In confirmation hearings in January, Kennedy said that he was not anti-vaccine, and that as secretary, he would not discourage people from getting immunized for measles or polio, but he dodged questions about the link between autism and vaccines.Another term on the list, cancer moonshot, refers to a program launched by President Barack Obama in 2016. It was a priority of the Biden administration, which intended for the program to cut the nations cancer death rate by at least half and prevent more than 4 million deaths.The list is an unusual mix of words that are tied to activities that this administration has been at war withlike equity, but also words that they purport to be in favor of doing something about, like ultraprocessed food, Tracey Woodruff, director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an email.The guidance states that staffers do not need to share content describing the routine conduct of science if it will not get major media attention, is not controversial or sensitive, and does not touch on an administration priority.A longtime senior employee at the institute said that the directive was circulated by the institutes communications team, and the content was not discussed at the leadership level. It is not clear in which exact office the directive originated. The NCI, NIH and HHS did not respond to ProPublicas emailed questions. (The existence of the list was first revealed in social media posts on Friday.)Health and research experts told ProPublica they feared the chilling effect of the new guidance. Not only might it lead to a lengthier and more complex clearance process, it may also cause researchers to censor their work out of fear or deference to the administrations priorities.This is real interference in the scientific process, said Linda Birnbaum, a former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences who served as a federal scientist for four decades. The list, she said, just seems like Big Brother intimidation.During the first two months of Donald Trumps second presidency, his administration has slashed funding for research institutions and stalled the NIHs grant application process.Kennedy has suggested that hundreds of NIH staffers should be fired and said that the institute should deprioritize infectious diseases like COVID-19 and shift its focus to chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity.Obesity is on the NCIs new list, as are infectious diseases including COVID-19, bird flu and measles.The focus on bird flu and covid is concerning, Woodruff wrote, because not being transparent with the public about infectious diseases will not stop them or make them go away and could make them worse.ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.Annie Waldman and Lisa Song, ProPublica 44 Comments