Advisory Panels Stacked, Scientists Warn

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http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-23-10.asp

 

 

Advisory Panels Stacked, Scientists Warn

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2003 (ENS) - American scientists are growing

increasingly worried that the Bush administration is manipulating scientific

advisory committees in order to further its political agenda.

 

The federal government relies on hundreds of these committees to provide

agencies with unbiased advice based on the best science available as well as to

peer review grant proposals for scientific research.

The Bush administration, many scientists fear, has distorted this process by

putting committee members through political litmus tests, eliminating committees

whose findings looked likely to disagree with its policies, and stacking

committees with individuals who have a vested interest in steering conclusions

to benefit effected industries.

Scientist John Turner holds a beaker containing a solar cell electrolyzer

submerged in an alkaline aqueous solution. (Photo by Richard Peterson courtesy

NREL) " We've seen a consistent pattern of putting people in who will ensure that

the administration hears what it wants to hear, " said Dr. David Michaels, a

research professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at

George Washington University's School of Public Health. Addressing reporters at

a press briefing today in Washington, Dr. Michaels said, " That doesn't help

science, and it doesn't help the country. "

The Bush administration says it is doing what every other administration has

done in the past, but many scientists take issue with this defense.

" The Clinton administration did not do this, " said Dr. Lynn Goldman, a

pediatrician and professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns

Hopkins University. " They did not exclude people based on some sort of litmus

test. " Pediatrician Dr. Lynn Goldman was assistant administrator of the Office

of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances of the U.S. EPA under the Clinton

administration. (Photo courtesy Johns Hopkins Magazine)

" These are not just the concerns of a few scientists or members of the public

health community but of a broad array of people across the country, " added Kelly

O'Brien, associate executive director of public affairs for the American Public

Health Association (APHA).

The role of these committees is not to tell the administration what they want to

hear, Michaels argues, but to tell them what science has concluded about the

issue under discussion.

" You hire political appointees to move your political agenda forward, " he

observes. " But the role of scientific advisory committees is quite different. It

is to give advice to the agencies and to the public on what is the best

science. "

" This is a threat to the fundamental principles that we want to make decisions

based on the best available science, " Goldberg added.

Americans may be unfamiliar with the role of scientific advisory committees, but

the impact of the advice they give is extensive. Rules and regulations that

govern clean air, clean water, food safety and pesticide use, among others, have

been devised with scientific advice from such committees.

The growing concern from American scientists comes from a slew of examples.

Members of the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Advisory Committee on

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention were replaced last year with individuals

with close ties to the lead industry, including Dr. William Banner, who has

provided written testimony on behalf of lead industry defendants in a lawsuit in

Rhode Island.

Banner is on record as believing that lead is only harmful in levels that are

seven to 10 times higher than the current CDC blood lead levels. The CDC

estimates some 890,000 U.S. children ages one to five have elevated levels of

lead in their blood.

Fifteen of the 18 members of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the

National Health Center for Environmental Health were replaced last year. This

committee assesses the health impact of exposure to environmental chemicals.

Among the new members is the former president of the Chemical Industry Institute

for Toxicology.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson (Photo courtesy U.S.

Government)Tommy Thompson, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human

Services (HHS), dissolved a committee charged with analyzing the federal system

for protecting human research subjects. A committee tasked with giving the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration advice on oversight of the genetics testing

industry was similarly disbanded.

A respected scientist nominated to serve on an HHS peer review study section,

which is charged with reviewing research grant proposals submitted to the

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, was rejected for her

support of an ergonomics rule overturned by the Bush administration last year.

A consultant to the Army Science Board was disapproved for full membership on

the committee because, he was told, he contributed to Senator John McCain's

campaign, an allegation that was false.

A new member of the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs

Advisory Committee, Dr. David Hager, helped the Christian Medical Association

lobby for a safety review of a drug the committee approved two years ago. The

announcement that Hager, who has very few research credits, had been put on the

committee was released on Christmas Eve.

The trouble with this politicization of the process by which scientists advise

the government, Michaels explained, is that they will directly impact the

government's willingness to act.

" I don't think there is really any danger of a committee coming out and making a

statement so far out of the mainstream that it takes us in a different

direction, " he explained. " What these committees will do, and I think this is

what the administration wants, is to essentially throw their hands up and say

there is too much uncertainty. That sort of paralysis is dangerous. "

Dr. Martin Apple (Photo courtesy University of Kansas Merrill Advanced Studies

Center)The trust the public has in science, and in the scientific advice offered

by the government for public health issues, could be gravely affected by these

developments, said Dr. Martin Apple, president of the Council of Scientific

Society Presidents.

" Public trust is like Humpty Dumpty, " Apple said. " It is difficult to establish,

easy to lose and nearly impossible to restore. "

It is not that anyone expects scientific advisory committee members to be

completely unbiased, Goldman said. Rather, it is critical that these committees

are focused only on the science, leaving political, economic and religious bias

out of the equation.

" If you attempt to predetermine the outcome of the scientific discussion by

selecting certain people for science committees or by constructing a consensus

before you bring the group together, then you are distorting the process, "

Goldman added. " For the past several months, again and again with this current

administration, we've seen evidence of this occurring. "

Goldman, who served as the assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention,

Pesticide and Toxic Substances within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

from 1993 to 1998, has firsthand experience with the Bush administration's

policy on scientific advisory committees. Goldman and two other experts on the

effects of pesticides on children were invited to speak at an EPA funded

conference that was scheduled for September 2002.

In July 2002, representatives from the pesticides industry wrote to the EPA to

protest the conference and specifically the participation of Goldman and the

other two scientists at the event. The EPA then rescheduled the conference for

June 2003 and has not re invited any of the three.

The overarching concern, Goldman said, is the apparent influence of the

pesticide industry on the EPA.

Congressman Henry Waxman has represented the Los Angeles area since 1974.

(Photo courtesy Office of the Representative)California Representative Henry

Waxman, a Democrat, agreed and sent EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman a

letter on December 20, 2002 asking for an explanation by January 6, 2003.

Waxman's spokesperson Karen Lightfoot told ENS that the Congressman has not

received any response from the EPA.

In late October 2002, Waxman and 11 other members of Congress sent a letter to

HHS Secretary Thompson, detailing concern with " a pattern of events … suggesting

that scientific decision making is being subverted by ideology and that

scientific information that does not fit the administration's political agenda

is being suppressed. "

HHS did reply to Waxman and his colleagues, but their explanations did not

satisfy the letter writers. A subsequent letter asking for more detailed

information was sent on December 18, 2002.

Lightfoot said there has been no response to the December 18 letter, but added

that Congressman Waxman will closely monitor " this trend of putting ideology

before science. "

Groups like the American Public Health Association, which has some 50,000

members, are calling on Congress to further explore just what the Bush

administration is doing with scientific advisory committees. APHA drafted a

series of recommendations, including the reevaluation of newly reconstituted

advisory panels and the creation of criteria to guide the selection of members

on public health advisory committees and peer review research committees at all

levels of government - federal, state and local.

Poster for the Scientific Computing Division Advisory Panel convened by the

National Center for Atmospheric Research (Photo courtesy )There is concern that

if the process continues forward without serious review that many qualified

scientists will decline to involve themselves with future committees.

" Scientists and the federal government in the United States have established an

effective system of providing expert advice, " Apple said. " But the best

scientists are only willing to serve on such advisory groups when they believe

that they are unbiased and will produce scientifically sound results. Once this

currency is debased, the best scientists will decline to take the time out from

their lives to participate, and the government will lose an irreplaceable

resource. "

" This will cause severe and last damage to the national interest and should be

actively prevented, " Apple urged.

There is " no glory " for scientists to take part in the vast majority of

scientific advisory committees, Michaels said. They are only compensated for

travel and accommodations, and the work is often long and tedious.

" It is quite possible that these are isolated, anecdotal incidents, " Goldman

suggested. " But then why hasn't there been an attempt to rectify them? "

 

 

 

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Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2003.

 

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