Paul Tonko: “I thank Representative Beyer for joining us in this fight and for his very challenging observations that he has shared.…”

“I thank Representative Beyer for joining us in this fight and for his very challenging observations that he has shared. His activism on behalf of this bill and science, in general, is most appreciated. Mr. Speaker, within the first few weeks of the Trump administration, we have seen an onslaught of attacks on scientists, on science, and evidence-based decisionmaking. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alone, we have seen public communications halted, critical datasets made inaccessible, and scientific manuscripts purged of terms deemed to invoke so-called gender ideology. CDC researchers were instructed to remove references to or mentions of a list of forbidden terms such as: gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, biologically female. Now, this effort to scrub scientific terms, erase demographic data, and silence researchers is not just wrong; it is dangerous. Health disparities exist. The data proves it. Ignoring those disparities, preventing experts from studying them will not make them disappear. It will only make our response to crises weaker, less effective, and certainly less equitable. When we can't track racial and ethnic disparities, gender, and sexual orientation in health outcomes, we lose the ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions. Doctors and policymakers rely on clear, unaltered data to guide their work.…”