The US executive order establishing “Gold Standard Science” does anything but

The Trump administration recently released the deceptively named “Gold Standard Science” executive order.1 The order includes a familiar framing for anyone who has followed science-based decision making in the US government over the past decade. Behind the rhetoric of scientific values like transparency, reproducibility, and integrity, the order disrupts longstanding process and policy in US science and undermines the principles it claims to uphold.

Embedded within the executive order is an innocuous sounding “Section 4” that asks federal agencies to publicly release the underlying data, models, and analysis of peer reviewed studies that affect public and private decision making. Scientists are accustomed to showing their work and no manuscript would pass peer review without clarity about the models, methods, and data behind the results. But this is alarming because the directive adds an additional and superfluous step, well beyond robust and time tested scientific processes. It threatens to restrict the studies that agencies can use in policy decisions.

The executive order sets up a frame that a scientific study cannot be used in policy decisions unless all of its underlying raw data are made public, with few exceptions. This ignores existing processes for ensuring scientific quality, like the evidence-informed scientific integrity policies that were already used by more than 30 federal agencies.2 It also falls foul of legal and ethical frameworks for research.

Political appointees could exclude studies where the data rely on personally identifiable information such as medical information that can and should be kept private, confidential business information, or older studies without readily available data, even if they have cleared peer review and been widely recognised in the field.

Such requirements would add tremendous time, cost, and increase inefficiency for agency officials. They would be tasked with chasing down researchers for raw data for the thousands of scientific studies that inform US government activities. This would include public health protections, scientific assessment documents, and technology reviews—studies for which the data, models, and methods have already been reviewed by experts in the field. Under the executive order, political appointees could use these standards to subjectively pick and choose what science their agencies are allowed to even consider.

We’ve seen similar moves to interfere with science before.3 It’s a strategy first conceived by the tobacco industry to stave off regulation of cancer causing chemicals released by secondhand smoke.4 Trump used this strategy in his first term when the Environmental Protection Agency’s so called “Transparency Rule” was created, following the same restrictive framework to ignore the science behind ambient air pollution protections.5 Despite the scientific community’s outcry at the rule, it was finalised just before Joe Biden’s inauguration.67 After Biden requested that the rule be reviewed in line with scientific integrity best practices, it was struck down in court.89 Based on what we’ve seen before, it’s clear that the intention of the executive order has nothing to do with the quality of science used by the federal government and everything to do with inconveniencing scientists interested in maintaining public safeguards.

The White House directive expands the danger to US science policy beyond these previous actions because it could be implemented government wide. We’ve already seen troubling actions and decisions coming out of the Department of Health and Human Services, the US’s leading public health agency.

Department of Health and Human Services appointees and other administration officials already have politicised research and pushed debunked conspiracy theories and dubious science on issues including vaccine safety and efficacy, gender-affirming care, chronic disease, and autism spectrum disorders.101112131415 These actions are all in the interest of pushing a political agenda under the guise of science.

The best available science is not always convenient for corporate and political actors.16 Placing additional constraints and added hardship on researchers—who could be charged with misconduct if a political appointee deems that their research fails the standard—opens a bigger window of opportunity for misinformation and threatens independent science. The scientific community must act to protect the principles we uphold. Critically, we must watch how this plays out in federal agency decisions that affect public health and safety. The president and administration have laid the groundwork, but the real harm will come when we see what agencies do with this order.

The scientific community has a chance to disrupt this attack on science. We must use our expertise and voices to insist that the best available science informs policy and decision making. When these bad ideas reared their head before, outcry and mobilisation from the scientific community helped defeat them.

Now is our chance. As agencies issue draft rules to comply with this executive order, scientists must submit public comments to the administrative record. We must speak to the media and elected officials about the scientific process and the risks to society if these orders are implemented. As a researcher, refuse to give up any data that should be protected. Scientific societies and other institutions should speak up and protect their members’ rights. Federal employee unions also should do their part to assert federal employees’ rights, and even obligation, to carry out their agencies’ science-based missions with integrity. We must stay vigilant. We must not allow this to stand.