WASHINGTON — Comedian George Carlin had the seven words "you can never say on television." Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly has seven terms that can't appear in official documents.

The Washington Post is reporting the Trump administration is banning the federal health agency from using seven words or phrases in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

The words are: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

According to the newspaper, senior CDC officials gave policy analysts the list of words during a meeting Thursday in Atlanta and told them they could not use those exact terms in any official documents being prepared for the 2019 budget being put together next year.

In some instances, the Post reported, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” a source told the newspaper. In other cases, no replacement words were offered.

Matt Lloyd, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, disputed the story.

“The assertion that HHS has ‘banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process," he said in an email. "HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions.”

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A key public health advocacy group called such a ban alarming.

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, wrote in a blog post Saturday that he's worried what such a directive would mean on the CDC's mission.

"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," he wrote.

The report is the latest episode where the Trump administration has apparently tried to ban certain terms or words, notably climate change.

• In August, the UK-based Guardian reported that the staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture had been told they must use the term "weather extremes" instead of "climate change."

• In September, The Washington Post reported a former Trump campaign aide in charge of vetting Environmental Protection Agency grants instructed EPA grant officers to eliminate references to "climate change" in the subject in solicitations.

Trump, himself, has often been accused of ignoring science when it gets in the way of his agenda. An ardent opponent of government regulations, the billionaire real estate developer has called climate change a "hoax" created by China to gain a competitive economic advantage.

In July, the president also tweeted his decision to ban transgender troops, a decision a federal court blocked in October.

The Washington Post said it's unclear who came up with the list of the CDC's seven banned terms. The meeting where they were unveiled was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, a CDC analyst who attended the meeting but wanted to remain anonymous told the newspaper.

The idea was not well received on social media.