Fw: 4,000 scientists have signed a petition accusing George Bush of twisting their work

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Tuesday, June 29, 2004 9:31 PM

4,000 scientists have signed a petition accusing George Bush of

twisting their work

 

 

The defiance of science

More than 4,000 scientists have signed a petition accusing George Bush of

twisting their work to further his political agenda. Andrew Buncombe

investigates the war between the White House and the men in white coats

29 June 2004

 

For Michael Greene, there was little hesitation. The Harvard professor has spent

much of his life working in the field of reproductive health, and when - in his

capacity as a member of a federal advisory committee - he was asked his opinion

about a new emergency contraception, he had few doubts about recommending that

it be licensed.

 

And neither did the overwhelming majority of his colleagues on the committee,

formed by the US federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Indeed, the

distinguished panel voted 23-4 in favour of selling the " morning after " pill

Plan B without prescription. The FDA almost always follows its experts'

recommendations.

 

But not this time. Despite the wealth of expert opinion, the FDA rejected the

committee's view, claiming that there was insufficient data. Committee members

were incensed. E-mails flew back and forth, talking of resignation and political

interference in the scientific process. " People are very angry, " says Greene.

" The issue here is much larger than just Plan B. The decision is blatantly

contrary to the science and the facts, and so blatantly politicised. "

 

But critics say that this is just one modest example among dozens of the way in

which the administration of President George Bush is manipulating and twisting

science for its own extreme ideological ends. On issues from global warming to

lead in drinking water and the alleged link between breast cancer and abortions,

this administration, like no other before it, is turning science into a

political battleground.

 

Suddenly, science is responding in what is almost certainly an unprecedented

revolt against the government. Earlier this year, the non-profit group, the

Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), put together a petition that has so far

been signed by more than 4,000 scientists, among them 20 Nobel prize-winners,

demanding that the Bush administration change its behaviour. It also published a

38-page report detailing the government's scientific distortions.

 

" Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that

have made the United States the world's most powerful nation, and its citizens

increasingly prosperous and healthy, " the report says. " Although scientific

input to the government is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions,

this input should always be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective

to avoid perilous consequences. Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to

by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing

policies. The administration of George Bush has, however, disregarded this

principle. "

 

The result of this politicisation, say disgruntled scientists, has resulted not

only in flawed policies but the very undermining of American scientific ideals -

and even perhaps the nation's founding principles. What has transpired, Lewis

Lapam noted recently in Harper's Magazine, which he edits, has been " the

systematic substitution of ideological certainty for reasonable doubt across the

entire spectrum of issues bearing on the public health and welfare... [a]

rejection of the scientific method in favour of the conviction that if the

science doesn't prove what it's been told to prove, then the science has been

tampered with by Satan or the Democratic Party " .

 

There are few issues where the evidence of scientific distortion is more

apparent than that of reproductive health. On 22 January 2001, four days after

his inauguration, Bush reinstated the so-called Mexico City policy, which denies

federal funds to family- planning groups that provide abortion counselling or

services overseas.

 

Since then, led by its born-again evangelical leader, the government has waged

war on anything that might be considered a " liberal approach " towards

reproductive health. Condoms have been condemned as ineffective, and the

administration has adopted " abstinence only " as the official approach towards

sex education. Over the last three years, Congress has given more than $100m in

grants to organisations that promote abstinence-only education.

 

A report published last year by the House of Representatives committee on

government reform noted that this had only been achieved by manipulating the

facts. " The Bush administration has consistently distorted the scientific

evidence about what works in sex education, " it said. " Administration officials

have never acknowledged that abstinence-only programmes have not been proven to

reduce sexual activity, teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease. Instead,

[it] has changed performance measures for abstinence-only education to make the

programmes appear successful, censored information on effective sex education

programmes, and appointed to a key panel an abstinence-only proponent with

dubious credentials. "

 

If the administration can use science to turn common sense on its head - does

anyone really believe that simply telling teenagers not to have sex will prevent

pregnancies? - there is little wonder that it is prepared to manipulate the

facts in more obviously " scientific " areas where ordinary people may be less

equipped to decide for themselves. In one incident, the administration altered

the National Cancer Institute's website to suggest that there was a link between

abortion and breast cancer. The federally funded institute was forced to change

the site after an outcry from scientists insisting that there was no such link.

 

It was in this environment that Barr Laboratories, the makers of Plan B, sought

federal approval for their new emergency contraception. Though Greene's panel,

along with the Non-Prescription Drugs Advisory Panel, voted last December to

license the product, it was only this month that the FDA's acting director,

Steven Galson, announced that he was overruling his experts. Galson denied that

anyone outside the FDA had influenced his decision. " As is the case with a lot

of these difficult decisions, there may not be agreement among people who are

experts in data analysis, " he said. He failed to mention, however, that 44

members of Congress had written to those on the committee urging them to reject

the contraception.

 

James Trussell, a professor at Princeton University's Office of Population

Research and a panel member, said that he believed that Plan B will only get

approved if there is a change of government. " It is being done to reflect the

philosophy of the administration. It is a very sad day, " he said. " But this is

not just limited to the FDA and just one decision. It's not an isolated thing.

Bad policy is being made. "

 

Indeed, the report drawn up by the committee on government reform lists 20

different topics, ranging from agricultural policy to ecological problems in the

Yellowstone National Park, in which science had been twisted. The report

concluded: " The Bush administration, however, has repeatedly suppressed,

distorted or obstructed science to suit political and ideological goals. These

actions go far beyond the traditional influence that Presidents are permitted to

wield at federal agencies, and compromise the integrity of scientific

policy-making. "

 

Critics say that the administration has adopted three strategies to twist facts.

The first is to manipulate the membership of advisory committees, stacking them

with people who share its views. Elizabeth Blackburn, a member of the

President's Council on Bioethics, found out in February that she and a colleague

were not to be reappointed to the panel after speaking out in support of

research on human stem cells. They were replaced by three new members who

opposed such research. " Not one of the newly appointed members is a biomedical

scientist, " she said.

 

In other cases, people with links to the industries that the panels are supposed

to be monitoring have been appointed. Elsewhere, people have been asked about

their views on abortion and the death penalty and their voting record. The Bush

administration is even prepared to block the appointment to international bodies

of American scientists. In April 2002, it ensured that Robert Watson - a critic

of America's energy policy - was voted out of his job as chairman of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after being lobbied by the ExxonMobil

oil company.

 

The second strategy is simply to misrepresent the truth. In August 2001, Bush

banned federal funding of research on new stem-cell lines, saying that there

were already 60 such lines available. He was not telling the whole truth. In May

2003, the director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) confirmed that

there were just 11 such lines available to researchers.

 

The final strategy, outlined by Martin McKee and Thomas Novotny in an article in

the European Journal of Public Health, is to block funding for controversial

issues. A federal analysis on air pollution that might have come up with

information uncomfortable to the administration was blocked, while researchers

applying to the NIH for funds on HIV research have been told to avoid using

phrases such as " sex worker " , " gay " and " anal sex " in their applications.

 

The administration dismisses charges of distortion. In April, Dr John Marburger,

the President's chief science adviser, issued a report rebutting many of the

accusations levelled by the UCS and others. (The UCS, in turn, issued an equally

detailed rebuttal of his rebuttals.) " The accusations in the document are

inaccurate, and certainly do not justify the sweeping conclusions of either the

document or the accompanying statement, " Marburger told Congress. " I believe the

document has methodological flaws that undermine its own conclusions, not the

least of which is the failure to consider publicly available information, or to

seek and reflect responses or explanations from responsible government

officials. "

 

In a telephone interview, Marburger did not deny that there may be individual

cases where scientists dispute the view of the White House. But he said: " What I

am denying is that there is a systematic practice of undermining science, or

manipulating or distorting it. " He also said that as science pushed at the

boundaries it was bound to come into contact with contentious issues. He

regretted that science had become politicised, but blamed groups such as the UCS

for that.

 

Marburger's office sent me information claiming that the Bush administration has

raised the funding of research and development to levels not seen since 1968 and

the Apollo programme. It also said that the National Academies' National

Research Council had come out in favour of Bush's strategic plan for global

warming, which it had earlier criticised. The academy actually said that the

plan was " much improved " compared with an earlier draft, but that commitments to

fund many of the newly proposed activities were lacking.

 

Despite Marburger's assertions, what appears beyond question is that an

unprecedented number of American scientists believe that science is being

manipulated as never before. Their anger is now seeping from the pages of

medical journals and reaching the mainstream.

 

Kurt Gottfried, professor of physics at Cornell and the UCS chairman, said his

organisation, as well as collecting the signatures of 4,000 scientists, had had

many messages of support from people working for the government who were unable

to make their concerns public. " In the first Bush administration, there were no

problems. This whole issue is unprecedented. "