Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts
By James Glanz
The New York Times
February 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/politics/19RESE.html
More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.
The sweeping accusations were later discussed in a conference call 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. On Wednesday, the organization also issued a 38-page report detailing its accusations.
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 systemically 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."
Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University who signed the statement and spoke during the conference call, said the administration had "engaged in practices that are in conflict with spirit of science and the scientific method." Dr. Gottfried, who is also chairman of the board of directors at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the administration had a "cavalier attitude towards science" that could place at risk the basis for the nation's long-term prosperity, health and military prowess.
Dr. John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, said it was important to listen to "the distinguished scientific leadership in this country." But he said the report consisted of a largely disconnected list of events that did not make the case for a suppression of good scientific advice by the administration.
"I think there are incidents where people have got their feathers ruffled," Dr. Marburger said. "But I don't think they add up to a big pattern of disrespect."
"In most cases," he added, "these are not profound actions that were taken as the result of a policy. They are individual actions that are part of the normal processes within the agencies."
The science adviser to Mr. Bush's father, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, went further. "You know perfectly well that it is very clearly a politically motivated statement," said Dr. Bromley, a physicist at Yale. "The statements that are there are broad sweeping generalizations for which there is very little detailed backup."
The scientists denied that they had political motives in releasing the documents as the 2004 presidential race began to take clear shape. The report, Dr. Gottfried said, had taken a year to prepare, much longer than originally planned, and was released as soon as it was ready.
"I don't see it as a partisan issue at all," said Russell Train, who spoke during the call and served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. "If it becomes that way I think it's because the White House chooses to make it a partisan issue."
The letter was signed by luminaries from an array of disciplines. Among the Nobel winners are David Baltimore and Harold Varmus, both biomedical researchers, and Leon M. Lederman, Norman F. Ramsey and Steven Weinberg, who are physicists. The full list of signatories and the union's report can be found at www.ucsusa.org.
Aside from some new interviews with current and former government scientists, some identified in the report and others quoted anonymously, most of the information in the documents had been reported previously by a variety of major newspapers, magazines, scientific journals and nongovernmental organizations.
According to the report, the Bush administration has misrepresented scientific consensus on global warming, censored at least one report on climate change, manipulated scientific findings on the emissions of mercury from power plants and suppressed information on condom use.
The report asserts that the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests.
Dr. Marburger said he was unconvinced by the report's description of those incidents. "I don't think it makes the case for the sweeping accusations that it makes," he said.
But Dr. Sidney Drell, an emeritus professor of physics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who was not a signatory to the statement, said the overall findings rang true to him.
"I am concerned that the scientific advice coming into this administration seems to me very narrow," said Dr. Drell, who has advised the government on issues of national security for some 40 years and has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, including those of Presidents Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson. "The input from individuals whose views are not in the main line of their policy don't seem to be sought or welcomed," he said.
Preeminent Scientists Protest Bush Administration's Misuse of Science
Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science Recipients, and Other Leading Researchers Call for End to Scientific Abuses
The Union of Concerned Scientists
February 18, 2004
http://www2.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/rsirelease.html
Washington, D.C.--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 decisionmaking 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 <http://www2.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1322> 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.
Among the statement signers are:
Philip W. Anderson*+
David Baltimore*+
Paul Berg*+
Lewis Branscomb
Thomas Eisner*
Jerome Friedman+
Richard Garwin*
Walter Kohn*+
Neal Lane
Leon Lederman*+
Mario Molina+
W.K.H. Panofsky*
F. Sherwood Rowland+
J. Robert Schrieffer*+
Richard Smalley+
Harold E. Varmus*+
Steven Weinberg*+
E.O. Wilson*
* National Medal of Science
+ Nobel laureate
Steven Schafersman, Texas Citizens for Science infoATtxscience.org (Help stop spam: replace AT with @ before mailing) Last updated: 2004/02/24