Vulnerable Words and the CDC

Rumor has it that the Trump administration has handed the Centers for Disease Control a list of seven “dirty words” that it should scrub from official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. Before we get to the words themselves — and isn’t seven a magic number? Seven dwarves, seven days, seven heavens, seven colors in the rainbow  — let’s pause for a moment to consider the plausibility of such a rumor in our country today.

When we think not just of censorship, but of actual, specific ...