Scientists group says Bush administration ignores, distorts
research
Article found here:
Truth Supression.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration distorts
scientific findings and seeks to manipulate expert advice to
avoid information that runs counter to its political beliefs,
says a group of prominent U.S. scientists.
The Union of Concerned Scientists contends in a report
released Wednesday 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."
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."
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 administration
policies.
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 global warming to
human activity.
- A delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some
power plants.
- An allegation that the Bush administration pressed the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end a
project called Programs that Work, which found sex education
programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still
effective.
On the Net: Union of Concerned Scientists: ucsusa.org
Office of Science and Technology Policy: ostp.gov
|
