America's leading public health institute has reportedly been told not to use words including "science-based" and "transgender". The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was instructed by the Trump administration not to use seven words in its documents for next year's budget, the Washington Post reported.

The other words were said to have been - evidence-based, foetus, diversity, vulnerable, entitlement.

In some cases CDC officials were reportedly supplied with alternatives, with a substitute phrase for "science-based" being "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes".

An analyst at the CDC told the Washington Post staff there were "incredulous".

The analyst said: “It was very much 'Are you serious? Are you kidding?'"

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, said: "Actions that divert the agency from its grounding in science could compromise the progress they are making in tracking opioid overdoses, reducing teen pregnancy, protecting the elderly from the flu, and slowing HIV transmission among transgender Americans."

The Trump administration has previously been accused of seeking to substitute the phrase "weather extremes" for "climate change" at the Department of Agriculture.

Gwen Moore, a Democrat congresswoman, said: "This is deeply disturbing and offensive."