DISINFORMATION SYNDROME AFFLICTS GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS

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" Right now, the federal civil service is scared to death. " That's a

quote from the press release below on how scientific and technical

papers,

particularly within U.S. environmental agencies, are routinely

censored, altered or manipulated for political purposes or under

commercial

pressure.

 

In one survey of scientists in a federal aggency more than half of all

respondents (56%) reported cases where " commercial interests have

inappropriately induced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific

conclusions

or decisions through political intervention " .

 

Here are some excerpts from the testimony given by Jeff Ruch, the

Executive Director of PEER -Public Employees for Environmental

Responsibility, to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the House

Committee on

Government Reform.

 

" On a daily basis, public employees in crisis contact PEER. In our D.C.

office alone, we average five 'intakes' per day. A typical intake

involves a scientist or other specialist who is asked to shade or distort

the truth in order to reach a pre-determined result, such as a favorable

recommendation on a project or approval; of commercial release of a new

chemical.

 

" From PEER's perspective, the federal government is suffering from a

severe disinformation syndrome. The level of official dissembling from

federal environmental and resource agencies has never been worse.

 

" The cases that PEER sees increasingly involve agencies manipulating

scientific or other

technical conclusions to fit a preset political agenda. Moreover, as

detailed below, employees who try to expose falsehoods often lose their

careers while managers who deliberately sanction official falsehoods

more often than not are rewarded or promoted and are rarely, if ever,

punished. "

 

PEER and the Union of Concerned Scientists have conducted surveys among

federal scientists showing a high degree of political intervention to

amend scientific findings. One survey showed:

 

*one in five scientists had been directed to inappropriately exclude or

alter technical information in a scientific document;

 

*more than half of all respondents (56%) reported cases where

" commercial interests have inappropriately induced the reversal or

withdrawal of

scientific conclusions or decisions through political intervention " ;

 

*more than a third (42%) of respondents said they could not openly

express concerns in public while

nearly a third (30%) felt they could not do so even inside the confines

of the agency;

 

*almost a third (32%) felt they are not allowed to do their jobs as

scientists.

 

One biologist wrote, " We are not allowed to be honest and forthright,

we are expected to rubber stamp everything. "

 

Another wrote, " It's one thing for the Department to dismiss our

recommendations, it's quite another to be forced (under veiled threat of

removal) to say something that is counter to our best professional

judgment. "

 

Although few official government surveys apear to exist on these

issues, those that PEER knows about produced outcomes that parallel the

results produced by the PEER/UCS surveys.

 

For instance, a previously unpublished internal survey of Food and Drug

Administration scientists, that PEER obtained through the Freedom of

Information Act, showed:

 

*nearly one in five scientists said that they " have been pressured to

approve or recommend approval " for a drug " despite reservations about

the safety,

efficacy or quality of the drug; "

 

*21% of scientists said the work environment offered little or no room

for dissent, with fully half (50%) answering that scientific dissent

was allowed only " to some extent " ;

 

*more than a third (38%) said procedures for resolving dissent existed

at the FDA only to a " small extent " or " not at all " .

 

In his testimony Jeff Ruch concluded, " The underlying problem is one of

corruption – intellectual corruption where heads are turned the other

way so long as disinformation delivers the desired result. "

 

Ruch also pointed out, " There can be no hope of improving the quality

of federal agency information if the specialists within the agencies

face

termination if they dare to try. "

 

Pointing out that there is evidence of agencies lying to Congress and

of their ordering Federal employees not to communicate the real facts to

Congress on pain of dismissal, Ruch said, " If agencies can lie with

impunity to Congress, why should they be expected to tell anyone

else the truth? "

 

Full text of the presentation:

http://www.peer.org/docs/fws/05_20_7_iqa.pdf

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" DISINFORMATION SYNDROME " AFFLICTS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - Officials

Routinely Rewarded for Lying and Punished for Telling the Truth

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=554

 

Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337

 

Washington, DC - The federal government suffers from a " severe

disinformation syndrome " in which agency specialists are pressured to

alter

reports by managers who are promoted for breaking the law, according to

congressional testimony delivered today by Public Employees for

Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a consequence, scientific and

technical

papers, particularly within environmental agencies, are routinely

censored, altered or manipulated for political purposes.

 

" The Bush administration obsession with controlling the flow of

information means that factual information that does not serve its

political

agenda rarely sees the light of day, " stated PEER Executive Director

Jeff Ruch who testified today. " Public servants who wish to speak

honestly

about matters outside officially approved agency talking points are

required to cast a profile in courage because their honesty could cost

them their jobs. "

 

Ruch appeared today before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of

the House Committee on Government Reform in a hearing entitled " Improving

Information Quality in the Federal Government. "

The other listed witnesses were Kim Wilson, the assistant administrator

for the information office of the Environmental Protection Agency, and

William Kovacs, an official with the Chamber of Commerce.

 

The PEER testimony outlines a pervasive effort to edit out vital but

discordant information across the range of environmental activities:

 

Science: PEER and the Union of Concerned Scientists have conducted

surveys among federal scientists showing a high degree of political

intervention to amend scientific findings;

 

Land Management: Federal agencies are routinely issuing documents that

do not withstand judicial scrutiny because the documents are at

variance with the agency's own internal data;

 

and Public Health " Whistleblowers lack meaningful protections so that

professionals who raise concerns are banished or terminated as a result.

 

A major problem cited by PEER is that Congress extends no meaningful

legal protections for executive branch employees who communicate

information to oversight committees or individual members. As a

consequence,

official reports to Congress are often inaccurate, incomplete or

untimely.

 

" If agencies can lie with impunity to Congress, why should they be

expected to tell anyone else the truth? " Ruch asked, calling for Congress

to put teeth into laws forbidding interference with or retaliation for

transmitting information to elected representatives. " Right now, the

federal civil service is scared to death. "