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The Trump administration reportedly banned staff of the nation's top health protection agency from using seven words or phrases in budget-related documents. But federal health officials on Saturday pushed back on the report as members of the science community publicly denounced the idea of such a directive.

Policy analysts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told during a meeting Thursday that they couldn't use the words "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based," The Washington Post reported Friday.

The meeting was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency's Office of Financial Services, The Post reported. She gave no reason for the ban, according to an anonymous analyst who spoke with the newspaper.

During the meeting, Kelly reportedly noted that three of the words — "vulnerable," "entitlement" and "diversity" — were flagged in the agency's budget drafts. The other words were mentioned verbally, the analyst said.

In a statement provided to NBC News, a spokesman with the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, said the assertion that there are "'banned words' had mischaracterized actual discussions."

"HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans," said spokesman Matt Lloyd. "HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions."

Lloyd didn't say specifically how The Post's report may have mischaracterized the meeting.

The budget materials that include the specific words and phrases The Post cited are given to partners of the CDC. Those materials, including supporting documents, are also provided to Congress.

The Office of Management and Budget, which will receive proposals from federal agencies for the president's 2019 budget and has a final say on what is included, did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.

The FDA, which is among the agencies and offices under the Health and Human Services umbrella, said Saturday that it had not received the same guidance as the CDC.

Related: CDC Climate Change and Health Meeting Back On — Without CDC

"We haven't received, nor implemented, any directives with respect to the language used at FDA to describe our policy or budget issues," an FDA spokeswoman told NBC News in an email.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society, blasted the notion of banning certain words — particularly ones rooted in science.

"Among the words forbidden to be used in CDC budget documents are 'evidence-based' and 'science-based.' I suppose one must not think those things either," Holt said. "Here's a word that's still allowed: ridiculous."

If anything, I found the two even more terrified about the Trump presidency at the end of Year One – filled with the sort of to-the-barricades warnings I’m still not used to hearing from learned defense wonks like Boot, who’s spent a career advising politicians like Republican Senator John McCain from establishment precincts like the Wall Street Journal op-ed page and the Council on Foreign Relations. “In many ways,” Boot said, “the damage he’s doing at home is even worse, where he’s undermining the rule of law. He’s obstructing justice. He’s lending the support of the presidency to monsters like Roy Moore. He is exacerbating race relations. He is engaging in the most blatant xenophobia, racism and general bigotry that we have seen from the White House.”

“All these things,” he added, “are very corrosive to the future of American democracy.”

Weren’t they being just a bit hysterical about the negative consequences of Trump, I pressed Boot?

“Look,” he responded, “the good news story of the first year of the Trump presidency is that there are checks and balances…. Trump as a personality type is probably no different from a Mussolini, a Peron, a Chavez. And if you were operating in Argentina or Italy, he would probably be a dictator by now. But luckily, he’s not operating in those countries.”

How Republicans Learned to Sell Tax Cuts for the Rich
If anyone still believed that the Republican Party had become a party of economic populism, the tax bill that the party is set to pass in Congress will burst their bubble. This bill raises taxes on the poor and cuts taxes on the rich. Most of the American people disapprove.

Senate Republicans negotiated in secret at top speed, and then passed the bill at 1:50 a.m. on a Saturday, as if to minimize public scrutiny. The original American populists were the men and women of the Populist Party who demanded open government and income taxes on the rich; this tax bill is exactly the sort of thing that made them howl in outrage.

But the Republican tax strategy has roots in the American populist tradition, too. That strategy is to disregard experts and rile up the base with tax policy arguments that would not survive professional scrutiny.

Populists did this on behalf of the poor. But the man who first put this strategy to work for rich people was Andrew Mellon, the millionaire who became secretary of the Treasury after World War I. Poor veterans of the war were clamoring for expensive public benefits. Rich men wanted their income taxes rolled back...

One Environmental Protection Agency employee spoke up at a private lunch held near the agency headquarters, saying she feared the nation might be headed toward an “environmental catastrophe.” Another staff member, from Seattle, sent a letter to Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, raising similar concerns about the direction of the agency. A third, from Philadelphia, went to a rally where he protested against agency budget cuts.

Three different agency employees, in different jobs, from three different cities, but each encountered a similar outcome: Federal records show that within a matter of days, requests were submitted for copies of emails written by them that mentioned either Mr. Pruitt or President Trump, or any communication with Democrats in Congress that might have been critical of the agency.

The requests came from a Virginia-based lawyer working with America Rising, a Republican campaign research group that specializes in helping party candidates and conservative groups find damaging information on political rivals, and which, in this case, was looking for information that could undermine employees who had criticized the E.P.A.

The principal beneficiary of Mellon's fortune was Richard Mellon Scaife who became one of the key funders (along with a number of other extremist right wing families) of the infrastructure that now is, arguably, more organized and powerful than the Republican party itself.

George Zimmerman Threatens to Feed Jay Z to Alligator over Trayvon Martin Documentary
George Zimmerman is back in the news. This time, he claimed that documentary makers visited his parents and an uncle for a Trayvon Martin documentary produced by Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter.

“I know how to handle people who **** with me,” he told The Blast in a Saturday report. “I have since February 2012.”

This is an obvious reference to the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

Track Palin, son of Sarah Palin, arrested on domestic violence charges in
The oldest son of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was arraigned Sunday on domestic violence charges, according to online court records.

Track Palin, was arraigned Sunday morning on charges of felony burglary, assault in the fourth degree and criminal mischief for causing property damage in Wasilla, Alaska, according to court records. The criminal mischief charge was for causing between $250 and $999 in property damage.

Amanda Marcotte‏
@AmandaMarcotte
If Obama's children had as many arrests and children out of wedlock as the Palins, Fox News would never cover any other story.

nature‏Verified account
@nature
‘Coincidence-detecting’ phosphoinositide sensors are used to study changes in the phosphoinositide lipid species found in membranes during the development and maturation of clathrin-coated vesicles http://go.nature.com/2ke57gV

Andy Slavitt‏Verified account
@ASlavitt
I’d like a satisfactory explanation of what Beavis is doing here.