Donald Trump accused of suppressing coal health risks

Scientists warn that ideology could soon
trump hard evidence in the US government

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An editorial in the highly-respected journal Nature questioned the reasoning for the
decision, saying the Trump administration might seek to cancel
other research it does not like.

“The DoI’s assertion that the decision is a budgetary one is
suspect, especially given that the study has already spent a good
amount of its budget,” the article said. “It seems, instead, that
the government would rather quash the review than risk it producing
results that cast aspersions on the coal industry.”

Trump made reviving America’s ailing coal industry one of his
central campaign pledges in a bid to return economic growth to the
rust-belt region, whose states were crucial to him getting
elected.

However, his stance on climate change, which he has called a
“hoax”, and environmental protections has put him on a collision
course with green activists and scientists.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in Boston in February, chief executive Dr
Rush Holt expressed fears that ideology would become
more important than evidence under a Trump Presidency.

Raising comparisons with the Soviet Union, “where scientists
were led to believe things that just weren’t so for political
reasons”, he warned that “when officials use the phrase
‘alternative facts’ without embarrassment, we know there’s a
problem”.