The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations

The new EPA proposal requires scientists to disclose all raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider a study's conclusions during the policymaking process. The Trump administration is using "scientific transparency" to undercut public health in the United States.

The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements. And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place.

For instance, a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University project that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths, currently the foundation of the nation’s air-quality laws, could become inadmissible. When gathering data for their research, known as the Six Cities study, scientists signed confidentiality agreements to track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 people in six cities. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.