(COMTEX) B: Science union claims Bush administration is misusing data
Jul 09, 2004 (The Boston Globe - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- The Union of Concerned Scientists accused the Bush administration yesterday of undermining science in crafting environmental and health policies, and said that more than 4,000 scientists had signed a statement calling for independent and objective scientific analysis and advice.
In its second report criticizing administration policy this year, the independent Cambridge-based organization contends that federal agencies overrode scientists' recommendations when they blocked the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception, decided how to count salmon and other endangered or threatened species, and downplayed the negative environmental impacts of mountaintop coal mining. And it says that candidates for National Institutes of Health scientific advisory panels have been rejected based on "political litmus tests."
"I'm increasingly concerned, because I see an increasing level of control from above," Gerald T. Keusch, assistant provost for global health at the Boston University School of Public Health, said yesterday during a conference call with reporters.
The White House science adviser, John H. Marburger III, disputed the report's criticism in general terms and said the administration is committed to seeking the best scientific input to inform decision-making. He also pointed to increased administration funding for science, research, and development.
"The material presented by the Union of Concerned Scientists resembles previous releases in making sweeping generalizations based on a patchwork of disjointed facts and accusations that reach conclusions that are wrong and misleading," said a statement Marburger released. "This administration values and supports science, both as a vital necessity for national security and economic strength and as an indispensable source of guidance for national policy."
In February the group accused the administration of discounting scientific evidence to suit predetermined policies on issues such as climate change. It also accused the administration of stacking advisory panels with industry representatives on issues including childhood lead poisoning. Marburger called the charge "preposterous."
Since February, when just 62 scientists had signed the statement, the union has gathered more than 4,000 signatures for its statement charging misuse of science by the administration.
Signers include Nobel laureates Walter Gilbert and Dudley R. Herschbach of Harvard University and Sheldon L. Glashow of Boston University and National Academy of Science member Herman N. Eisen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus in biology. The group solicited support through its website, http://www.ucsusa.org , where all the names are listed, including 48 Nobel Prize winners.
The new report provides additional examples of alleged misuse of science, some of which have already been reported in the news media or scientific journals.
In the new report, Keusch said that the nomination process to the advisory board of the Fogarty International Center in Bethesda, Md., where he was director from 1998 until resigning at the end of last year, became protracted and politicized under the Bush administration.
The center, which supports international research aimed at reducing disparities in global health, is one of nearly two dozen NIH institutes, many of which use advisory boards to oversee peer review of scientific work and to allocate federal research funds.
"It couldn't be more clear: Night and day prior to the election of 2000 and after," Keusch said, in comparing his experiences trying to appoint advisory board members during the Clinton and Bush administrations. During the three years of the Bush administration, Keusch said, 19 of the 26 candidates he recommended to serve on the Fogarty Center's council-level advisory board were rejected by the Department of Health and Human Services, even after they were approved by the NIH director.
He said in the report that when he met with Health and Human Services staff, he was told that Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel, formerly of Harvard Medical School, had "signed too many full-page letters in the New York Times critical of President Bush." A highly respected demographer was rejected because she was on the board of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive health research organization, and a third was deemed too political because of her stance on abortion rights, Keusch said.
HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said there was no basis for Keusch's complaints.
"Nobody here has any recollection of that at all," Pierce said of the conversation Keusch said he had with HHS staff.
Pointing out that the agency's secretary makes the decision on numerous panel appointments, Pierce said the department looks for diversity of representation and takes input from various sources.
"You have to think of this like a job application process: Names come in to us from all sources, including Dr. Keusch, but we get them from Congress, professional associations, people give us their own names," Pierce said.
He added that it was the scientists who were trying to politicize science, aiming for scientific committees to reflect their point of view.
He said two of the scientists who participated in yesterday's conference call had contributed to Democratic organizations.
Other nominees to science advisory panels, typically selected for their credentials and technical expertise, said in the report that they were asked before they were appointed whether they had voted for Bush, a point some called inappropriate even though they were approved.
The report also cites government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that the group says suggest that the administration disregarded extensive scientific studies on the environmental impact of Appalachian mountaintop removal mining, a process that removes mountain ridges to expose coal seams, dumping waste rock and dirt into streams below.
While an environmental review was intended to minimize the adverse effects on water, fish, and wildlife, the report says, the deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior, a former mining lobbyist, changed the review's focus to "centralizing and streamlining coal-mining permitting."
The report quotes staff from the US Fish and Wildlife Service who protested internally that the review offered no proposed alternatives to lessen the environmental consequences.
The report also says that the National Marine Fisheries Service asked an advisory panel to remove from a report a recommendation that hatchery-raised salmon not be counted along with wild salmon as the administration developed a policy on threatened fish in the Northwest.
Robert Paine, a renowned ecologist at the University of Washington who sat on the panel, said it published its findings independently. "Policy, in this case, was trumping science," he said. "Science was being ignored."
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