Preeminent Scientists Protest
Bush Administration Misuse of Science

PRESS RELEASE / Union of Concerned Scientists 18feb04

Today, more than 60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.

"Across a broad range of issues, the administration has undermined the quality of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," said Dr. Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Whether the issue is lead paint, clean air or climate change, this behavior has serious consequences for all Americans."

"Science, to quote President Bush's father, the former president, relies on freedom of inquiry and objectivity," said Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon and Ford, who joined the scientists in calling for action. "But this administration has obstructed that freedom and distorted that objectivity in ways that were unheard of in any previous administration."

The statement notes that while scientific input to the government is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input should be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective. However, the administration of George W. Bush has disregarded this principle.

"The Earth system follows laws which scientists strive to understand," said Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland a Nobel laureate in chemistry. "The public deserves rational decision-making based on the best scientific advice about what is likely to happen, not what political entities might wish to happen."

"We are not simply raising warning flags about an academic subject of interest only to scientists and doctors," said Dr. Neal Lane, a former director of the National Science Foundation and a former Presidential Science Advisor. "In case after case, scientific input to policymaking is being censored and distorted. This will have serious consequences for public health."

In conjunction with the statement, the Union of Concerned Scientists today released a report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking that investigates numerous allegations in the scientists' statement involving censorship and political interference with independent scientific inquiry at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Interior and Defense.

One example cited in the statement and report involves the suppression of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act. "This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather Service to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone to think we have clear skies ahead," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists "The hurricane is still coming, but without factual information no one will be ready for it."

Comparing President Bush with his father, George H.W. Bush and former president Richard M. Nixon, the statement warned that had these former presidents similarly dismissed science in favor of political ends, over 200,000 deaths and millions of respiratory and cardiovascular disease cases would not have been prevented with the signing of the original Clean Air Act and the 1990 amendments to that Act.

The statement demands that the Bush administration's "distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease" and calls for Congressional oversight hearings, guaranteed public access to government scientific studies and other measures to prevent such abuses in the future. The statement further calls on the scientific, engineering and medical communities to work together to reestablish scientific integrity in the policymaking process.

Scientists Accuse White House of Distorting Facts

JAMES GLANZ / NY Times 18feb04

he Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad, a group of about 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement issued today.

The sweeping charges were later discussed in a conference call with some of the scientists that was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. The organization also issued a 37-page report today that it said detailed the accusations.

Together, the two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice, and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.

"Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front," the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies."

A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today he had not seen the text of the scientists' accusations. "But I can assure you that this is an administration that makes decisions based on the best available science," he said.

Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University who signed the statement and spoke in the conference call, said the administration had "engaged in practices that are in conflict with the spirit of science and the scientific method." Dr. Gottfried asserted that what he called "the cavalier attitude toward science" could place at risk the basis for the nation's long-term prosperity, health and military prowess.

The scientists denied that they had political motives in releasing the documents as the 2004 presidential race began to take clear shape, a day after Senator John Kerry won the Wisconsin Democratic primary and solidified his position as President Bush's likely opponent in the fall. The organization's report, Dr. Gottfried said, had taken a year to prepare — much longer than originally planned — and had been released as soon as it was ready.

"I don't see it as a partisan issue at all," said Russell Train, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, and who spoke in the conference call in support of the statement. "If it becomes that way I think it's because the White House chooses to make it a partisan issue," Mr. Train said.

source: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?tntget=2004/02/18/science/18CND-RESE.html&tntemail0=&pagewanted=print&position= 18feb04

Scientists Group Says Bush Administration
Ignores, Distorts Research

AP 18feb04

WASHINGTON—President Bush's administration distorts scientific findings and seeks to manipulate experts' advice to avoid information that runs counter to its political beliefs, a private organization of scientists asserted on Wednesday.

The Union of Concerned Scientists contended in a report that "the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented."

"We're not taking issue with administration policies. We're taking issue with the administration's distortion ... of the science related to some of its policies," said the group's president, Kurt Gottfried.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he had not seen the report but that the administration "makes decisions based on the best available science."

White House science adviser John Marburger said he found the report "somewhat disappointing ... because it makes some sweeping generalizations about policy in this administration that are based on a random selection of incidents and issues."

He added, "I don't think it makes the case for the sweeping accusations that it makes."

Marburger acknowledged that the complaint was signed by a wide assortment of prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winners and recipients of the National Medal of Science.

That, he said, is "evidence we are not communicating with them as we should and I'll have to deal with that."

"We need to have a dialogue about what is actually happening, but this report does not do it," Marburger said.

F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel prize winner for his studies of ozone in the atmosphere, was particularly critical of the administration's approach to climate change.

He said the consensus of scientific opinion about global warming is being ignored and that government reports have been censored to remove views not in tune with Bush's politics.

The union's report came at the same time the National Academy of Science was releasing its own study that commends the administration's plan to study climate but also expresses concern that the research was underfunded and not being pursued vigorously enough.

Asked if they had seen any political interference in the climate program, Thomas E. Graedel of Yale University, chairman of the academy committee, said his group did not look for that. But, he added, he had not seen anything that would suggest the research plan had such political concerns.

A commission member, Anthony L. Janetos of the John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, noted that the climate program involves high level members of the administration.

That's a two-edged sword, Janetos said. It means scientists are dealing with people who can make decisions and provide resources, but it also creates a challenge in maintaining scientific credibility.

Among the examples cited in the union's report:

--a 2003 report that the administration sought changes in an Environmental Protection Agency climate study, including deletion of a 1,000-year temperature record and removal of reference to a study that attributed some of global warming to human activity.

--a delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some power plants.

--a charge that the administration pressed the Centers for Disease Control to end a project called "Programs that Work," which found sex education programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still effective.

source: http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/business/technology/7982691.htm 18feb04