Researchers warned to avoid controversial words

Officials at federal agencies have advised AIDS researchers to avoid using potentially offensive words and phrases such as "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex," and "needle exchange" in their applications for federal grants, according to reports published in Science magazine and the New York Times. Researchers and government staff members who declined to be named told the two publications that the warnings were meant to shield grant applications from being singled out for extra scrutiny by Bush administration officials and members of Congress. The officials suggested that scrutiny of controversial research projects has increased under the current administration.

Spokespeople for the agencies in question, which include the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deny that researchers have been advised to expunge specific words from grant applications and that the applications are being subjected to increased scrutiny.