Currents: The Storm at the Gate of Science

What happens when we let ideology rewrite the rules of science? We’re about to find out.

The amount of upheaval across public health, medicine, and scientific research since the start of this year has been overwhelming. Announcements have come so quickly that it’s been hard to keep track. But just because the news cycle moves fast doesn’t mean the consequences will be short-lived. In fact, the opposite may be true.

This week, I’m stepping back to look at three stories that reveal a coordinated effort to reshape the institutions we’ve long relied on to protect scientific integrity. Here’s what I’m watching and why it matters.

Vaccine Panel Purge

Health Secretary RFK Jr. fired all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). This group has helped to guide every major vaccine recommendation in the U.S. since the 1960s. He accused them of “malevolent malpractice,” and replaced them with individuals who, by and large, either lack experience in infectious disease or have expressed public skepticism about vaccines altogether.

If you’ve never heard of ACIP, you’re not alone. But their decisions shape everything from childhood immunization schedules to whether your insurance will cover an HPV or shingles vaccine. When you remove this anchor and replace it with ideology, the ripple effects will travel far beyond policy. Parents will start to question routine vaccines. Doctors and health systems face confusion over what will be reimbursed. And diseases we thought were largely controlled, like measles and cervical cancer, will begin coming back.

“GOLD Standard Science” Isn’t About Better Science, It’s About Control

Last month, President Trump issued an executive order titled Restoring Gold Standard Science. On paper, it claims to promote transparency in the scientific evidence used for federal decision-making, emphasizing reproducibility, integrity, and public access to data. It calls for agencies to disclose the underlying analyses behind policies, encourages acceptance of negative results, and warns against conflicts of interest. It mandates that government agencies disclose the data and analyses behind any scientific information used to shape major policies.

If you read only the headlines, this sounds very reasonable and aligns with the values espoused by the majority of the research community.

But as with everything, there is more to the story. This executive order revives the logic behind the now-defunct “Secret Science” rule at the EPA that requires raw data for a study to be considered in policy decisions. It’s a tactic that sounds reasonable until you realize its true impact: excluding vital research, particularly in public health, because it relies on confidential medical or environmental data that cannot legally or ethically be disclosed. Studies on air pollution, toxic exposure, or long-term health risks could be sidelined not because they’re flawed, but because the data they rely on is protected.

Critics across the scientific community have highlighted the dangers of this shift. Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science, put it bluntly: “The proposed standards would result in discarding important evidence that should inform decision-making.” In other words, if implemented as written, the order wouldn't improve science. It would render large swaths of it invisible to federal agencies.

And that’s just the beginning. The executive order also dismantles scientific integrity safeguards put in place during the Biden administration. These policies were designed to shield researchers from political interference and allow dissenting voices to be heard. Without those protections, federal scientists could be punished for producing results that are politically inconvenient. Peer-reviewed research could be invalidated not on the basis of methodology, but on ideology.

When the administration talks about “gold-standard science,” what it’s really promoting is a narrower, more controllable version of inquiry that can be shaped to fit a predetermined narrative. But real science doesn’t work that way. We must hold space for debate, disagreement, and revision.

The Attack on Medical Journals Continues

In a recent podcast, RFK Jr. took aim at the world’s leading medical journals—The Lancet, JAMA, and The New England Journal of Medicine—calling them “corrupt” and declaring that NIH scientists may soon be prohibited from publishing in them. Instead, he proposed creating new in-house journals at HHS “unless current journals change radically.”

Admittedly, scientific publishing isn’t perfect. Conflicts of interest exist, and transparency should always be improved. But the solution isn’t to replace journals with government-controlled publications. Peer-reviewed journals are one of the last remaining guardrails for scientific integrity. They provide a forum where research is debated, vetted, and contextualized. Forcing researchers to abandon those outlets doesn’t just isolate American science from the global community. It also undermines the careers of young scientists who rely on reputable publications to build credibility and secure future funding.

The Upshot

Taken together, these changes reflect a seismic shift in how scientific decisions are being made, who is allowed to make them, and what kinds of evidence will be considered legitimate.

Advisory committees, peer review, and independent journals have long served as safeguards for scientific rigor and public trust. These mechanisms guide decisions on everything from routine vaccinations to drug approvals and clinical guidelines. Weakening them does not just affect researchers. It affects every patient, clinician, and policymaker who depends on reliable evidence.

What makes this moment so challenging is not just the volume of change, but the way it is unfolding. Executive orders, policy shifts, and advisory panel shakeups are arriving all at once. The language used is often technical or vague, making both the intent and the consequences difficult to understand.

But I want to be clear. These changes matter. They may not dominate the news, and they may involve committees and processes that most people have never heard of. But they will shape the kind of science we support, the kind of medicine we practice, and the kind of public health system we leave behind. This is not a time to disengage. This is a time to pay closer attention.