Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has documented 576 attacks on science and 188 potential scientific integrity violations between January 20, 2025 and June 30, 2026, according to data from the organisation's newly launched Attacks on Science Tracker, an interactive platform tracking political interference with federally funded or conducted research under the second Trump administration.
The dashboard, built and maintained by UCS researchers, allows users to filter and analyse the data by federal agency, public policy area, type of attack, and whether the impact of a given action is already visible.
According to UCS, of the attacks documented as of late May 2026 roughly 343 had an impact on public health and safety, while 187 were classified as potential violations under the current text of the proposed Scientific Integrity Act. The organisation's analysts say the tracker sorts attacks into eleven categories, including efforts to politicise research funding, sideline or dismiss federal scientific experts, censor scientific communications, weaken scientific integrity protections, and elevate political appointees with records of promoting misinformation into decision-making roles. UCS researchers estimate that passing and enforcing the Scientific Integrity Act would have prevented about a third of the attacks documented since January 20, 2025.
Among the categories tracked, altering study results and interfering with data collection stand out. UCS analysts found that the Trump administration altered more than 100 federal datasets related to public health and safety to align with anti-science and anti-trans executive orders between January 20, 2025 and June 29, 2026, and identified 38 such cases as potential scientific integrity violations.
Separately, the organisation counted 87 attacks classified under data collection interference, including one incident in which the administration used explicit measures to obstruct the collection of a scientific study.
Dr Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of UCS, said the damage from these actions would outlast the current administration, warning that halted research, the departure of scientific expertise from government, and weakened safeguards could have consequences ranging from fewer medical breakthroughs to worsened pollution and food safety risks. Dr Jules Barbati-Dajches, an analyst with the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS, said the human cost of the interference was tangible, pointing to how it limits access to information tied to severe weather, contagious disease, and food safety, and argued that political interference in science is not inevitable and that stronger integrity protections could safeguard federal scientists and evidence-based policymaking.
Reported examples cited by UCS include the termination of a flu vaccine campaign during a severe flu season and the rollback of regulations on PFAS, or "forever chemicals," which have been linked to cancer and other health problems.
UCS says it built the tracker by training automated scripts to collect and organise relevant news coverage, with researchers then reviewing and categorising the surfaced articles to identify attacks and integrity violations. The methodology, data, and underlying R scripts have been made public through Harvard Dataverse and UCS's GitHub page, and the organisation says it will update the tracker regularly.
UCS notes that its Center for Science and Democracy has tracked attacks on science and advocated for integrity protections since 2001, and that the current tracker builds on decades of earlier work documenting similar interference under previous administrations, from disappearing data and silenced scientists to suppressed studies and other assaults on science-based policy.
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