Climate Change Language Deleted from NIH Site

The communications director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says news reports of the changes are overblown.

Written byBob Grant

| 2 min read

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WIKIMEDIA, AXEL KRISTINSSONThe National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) made several changes to its website in the past few months, some of which altered mentions of “climate change” to read simply “climate,” according to the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative Website Monitoring Report released last week (August 20).

Politico first reported on EDGI’s findings, in a story entitled “NIH site drops mentions of 'climate change'.” That story implies links between changes to the NIEHS site and President Trump’s stance on global warming, as does a later story in The Guardian that also draws parallels to recent instances where other government websites, including that of the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House, removed mentions of climate change across the board.

But the person responsible for the changes to the NIEHS website denies that the changes were made in response to political pressure. “No one from the Trump administration has contacted me about it or given any direction on these web pages or even the topic of climate change,” Christine Flowers, NIEHS’s Office of ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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