Trump’s Banned Words and Disastrous Health Policies
Joseph J. Amon
Nearly 60 years ago the comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for saying “forbidden” words in his stand-up show.[1] A few years later, George Carlin carried on the tradition and was arrested for a routine on the “seven words you can’t say on television”.[2]
What was transgressive then, and what subjected Bruce and Carlin to arrest, is less than shocking today, and has, with the election of Donald J. Trump as US President, become normalized and transformed into what has been called “middle finger politics”.[3]
A big difference though is that the words Bruce and Carlin used, which may have offended the conscience of many people (although limited to those paying to see their shows), were not part of a political circus seeking to erase the identities and restrict the human rights and civil liberties of millions of Americans, as well as hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide.[4]
Since his inauguration, President Trump has launched a blizzard of executive orders upending government programs affecting science, public health, the environment, trade, education, sports, and more. As part of these efforts, he has authorized a new list of banned words: gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, and biologically female.[5]
These are words that Trump demanded be eliminated from the US Centers for Disease Control’s website, erasing not only identities, but also critical information on the health status and health inequities of often vulnerable populations. The orders also limit the ability of public health professionals, within the US government and outside of it, to implement programs and conduct research to ensure that everyone’s health needs are met.
On its face, this campaign seems ludicrous and laughable: as archaic as the trumped-up charges against Bruce and Carlin. Have we really stepped back in time to a world where the police, or the US President, is policing language?
The obvious answer is yes, we have.
But this effort is clearly much greater, and much more powerful, than a couple of comedians pressing against the boundaries of quaint, and often hypocritical, social conventions. Trump’s campaign against these words is part of a much larger effort to upend public health and healthcare in the United States and globally. It is as much a war against words as it is a war against science and against the progress that has been made over decades building global partnerships to advance the right to health.
Global health and human rights
To understand more of Trump’s global impact on health, we need look no further than a news article published February 3 in The Standard (Kenya). It reported that the United States had suspended the supply of HIV antiretroviral (ARV) medicines to the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, “until further notice”.[6] Kenya has approximately 1.4 million people living with HIV and with the support of internationally funded HIV prevention and treatment programs has seen a sharp decline in new infections, falling from 270,000 new infections in 1992 to 21,000 infections in 2023.[7] The continuing success of these programs is now at risk.
The nonprofit research organization amfAR has estimated that globally the US PEPFAR program supports 271,229 health workers who work in communities, health clinics, laboratories and pharmacies and deliver ARVs to 222,333 people every day, 365 days per year.[8] Among those being reached are 679,936 pregnant people living with HIV and receiving ARV treatment for their own health and to prevent transmission to their children. The organization estimated that during a 90-day US work stop, 135,987 babies would acquire HIV.[9] Making matters worse, these children would likely go undiagnosed because infant HIV testing services are also being suspended. Every day of the work stop an estimated 1,471 infants would be infected.
Two weeks after the announcement of a 90-day “pause” for all US foreign assistance, the US Department of State issued a memo allowing “life-saving HIV care and treatment services”, prevention of “mother-to-child” transmission services, and payment of “reasonable” administrative costs to continue. Confusion reigns however as to the details of what is permitted and reportedly funding remains blocked. amfAR’s report also highlighted the work stop’s impact on critically important programs that were related to HIV, but not strictly treatment programs. For example, in 2024, PEPFAR provided post-violence care to more than 1.3 million people, or more than 3,600 survivors of domestic and sexual violence every day, including by providing rape kits, HIV testing, post-exposure prophylaxis, and other essential services. These programs are stalled.
Malaria programs have also been affected. In Kenya 70% of the population is considered at risk of malaria and over 6 million people are affected each year, mostly children under five years of age and pregnant people.[10] Recent progress against malaria has come from a new vaccine—developed over the past four decades through work by the US government’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the pharmaceutical company GSK, the non-profit organization PATH, and the Gates Foundation, among others. It has reduced cases of severe malaria and child deaths, and increased health care access for children more broadly.[11] Few Americans are likely aware that malaria was endemic in parts of the US until 1950, but as climate change advances, what are now rare cases of transmission may become more common.[12]
Malaria programs throughout sub-Saharan Africa have shut down mosquito control efforts and suspended shipments of bed nets to protect people from malaria because of Trump’s orders. Programs to end maternal mortality lack medicines to stop hemorrhages. Inexpensive treatments, like oral rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea, are not being delivered through health systems because of stop-work orders issued by the Trump administration.
Clinical trials have been suspended. Family planning programs halted. While there have been announcements that exemptions exist for some programs, program implementers wait for clarity on whether the exemptions apply to their programs. Meanwhile, thousands of staff—experts in these programs and in how to navigate the communities where they are implemented—have been furloughed or fired. In Bangladesh the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research has laid off more than 1,000 employees.[13]
Right to health in the US
These actions—“pausing” aid internationally—might seem to be consistent with Trump’s campaign slogan of “America First”. But are they?
Trump’s recent executive orders and the actions of his administration also imperil the health of all Americans. Withdrawing the country from the World Health Organization will interfere with its ability to defend the country against future pandemics. Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change makes the United States more vulnerable to the climate-related catastrophes—measured in lives and in GDP—that are already occurring. Ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs makes it harder for public health workers to represent and work with the communities they serve and to fight back against misinformation and disinformation.[14] For Trump, who has proposed the blatantly unqualified, anti-science, conspiracy-minded Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, that may be intentional. But the impact on Americans, especially those most vulnerable, is inescapable, and affects the enjoyment of the right to equality and nondiscrimination; the right to information and to science; and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Trump’s orders have especially affected the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans. Discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and particularly transgender people, was getting worse in the United States well before Trump came into office, with some states passing legislation limiting the rights of transgender individuals, particularly children. These laws included restrictions on access to bathrooms, to participate in sports, and any discussion of gender and sexuality in schools.[15] As of 2023, 22 states banned at least some forms of gender-affirming health care for children, and five punished gender-affirming care as a felony.[16]
These policies contradict protections under the ICCPR, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity. A report released by the Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in 2022 found that “these actions rely on prejudiced and stigmatizing views of LGBT persons, in particular transgender children and youth, and seek to leverage their lives as props for political profit.”[17]
The right to information on gender and sexuality has also been repeatedly restricted in the United States through bans on educational materials and books in schools and libraries. These bans violate the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds” guaranteed under the ICCPR and erase the visibility of transgender individuals.[18]
Lawmakers in many states have attempted to prohibit transgender people from expressing their gender identity by prohibiting them from sharing their pronouns and restricting discussions of gender identity—and these were among the first steps taken by Trump across all federal agencies.[19]
The right to benefit from scientific progress has also been upended by Trump’s actions, impacting the right to health in the United States and globally. Trump’s actions to strip the CDC’s website of information on LGBTQ+ health and to prohibit the collection of information that includes the self-identification of peoples’ gender identity impedes our understanding of US and global public health challenges and successes. The denial of gender-affirming care for transgender individuals also violates the right to health and privacy, and can deny the right to security of person, life, and freedom from cruel and degrading treatment.
Conclusion
The words used by Bruce and Carlin were intended to provoke, to call out hypocrisy and make America a more honest, open, and freer country. Trump’s forbidden words achieve exactly the opposite: they deny reality and demonstrate ignorance, and we should follow in the comedians’ vein by using them loudly, openly, and in defense of human rights and dignity for all.
Joseph J. Amon, PhD, MSPH, is the Editor-in-Chief of Health and Human Rights
References
[1] D. Schultz, “Lenny Bruce,” Free Speech Center. Middle Tennessee State University (2024). https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/lenny-bruce/
[2] J. R. Radcliffe, “George Carlin was arrested for profanity after performing ‘Seven Words’ at Summerfest in 1972, but he got the last laugh,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2021,
[3] E. Klein, “The rise of “middle-finger” politics,” New York Times (29 March, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-john-ganz.html?showTranscript=1
[4] A. R. Flores and K. J. Conron, “Adult LGBT Population in the United States,” (Dec 2023). https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Adult-US-Pop-Dec-2023.pdf
[5] J. Faust, “CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed” Inside Medicine (2 Feb, 2025) https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-news-cdc-orders-mass-retraction
[6] M. Kahenda, “US suspends essential drugs supply to Kemsa,” (Feb 3, 2025). https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-science/article/2001510889/us-suspends-essential-drugs-supply-to-kemsa
[7] UNAIDS. Kenya Country Page: https://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/kenya
[8] amfAR. (2025). “Impact of Stop Work Orders for PEPFAR Programs,” (2025) https://www.amfar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Impact-of-Stop-Work-Orders-for-PEPFAR-Programs-2.pdf
[9] Estimate is based on an expected HIV transmission rate of 40% when a woman is not on treatment and assuming that 50% of pregnant women on ART would deliver during a 90-day stoppage.
[10] Z. Elnour, H. Grethe, K. Siddig, and S. Munga, “Malaria control and elimination in Kenya: economy-wide benefits and regional disparities,” Malaria Journal, 22(1), p.117 (2023).
[11] World Health Organization (2023). “The first malaria vaccine in Kenya: the view from health professionals, community leaders and parents,” (2023)
[12] Johns Hopkins University. “What to Know About Malaria in the U.S.”
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us
[13] S. Nolen S. “Health Programs Shutter Around the World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid,” (Feb 1, 2025)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/health/trump-aid-malaria-tuberculosis-hiv.html
[14] M. Yudell and J. J. Amon, “What’s Next for Public Health?” (2024) https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/s-next-public-health
[15] Human Rights Watch, University of Miami School of Law, and Equality Florida, “Human Rights Violations against Transgender Communities in the United States,” (12 Sept 2023), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2023/10/2023.09.12_HR%20Violations%20against%20Trans%20Communities.pdf
[16] Ibid.
[17] Human Rights Council, Protection from Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Report by Independent Expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz, Country Visit to the United States of America: Preliminary Observations, IE-SOGI-EOM-US (2022).
[18] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI) (1966), art. 19; #2. “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”.
[19] US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace,” (Jan 2025)