Bush Misuses Science Data, Report Says
The New York Times
August 8, 2003
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
W ASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - The Bush administration persistently
manipulates scientific data to serve its ideology and protect the interests of its
political supporters, a report by the minority staff of the House
Committee on Government Reform says.
The 40-page report, which was prepared for Representative
Henry A. Waxman, the committee's ranking Democrat, accused the administration of
compromising the scientific integrity of federal institutions
that monitor food and medicine, conduct health research, control disease and protect
the environment.
On many topics, including global warming and sex education,
the administration "has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or
suppressed scientific findings," the report said.
"The administration's political interference with science
has led to misleading statements by the president, inaccurate responses to Congress,
altered Web sites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international
communications and the gagging of scientists," the report added.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, dismissed the report.
He contended that its sponsor, Mr. Waxman, who is widely known for his
aggressive inquiry into the tobacco industry, was seeking to score political points.
"This administration looks at the facts, and reviews the best
available science based on what's right for the American people," Mr. McClellan said.
"The only one who is playing politics about science is Congressman Waxman.
His report is riddled with distortion, inaccuracies and omissions."
Some of the examples from the report's 21 subject areas
have already been reported in the media. They include the Environmental Protection
Agency's decision last year to delete a section on global warming
in its comprehensive report on the state of the environment and President Bush's
overstatement of the number of stem cell lines available for research
under controls imposed by the administration.
The report's authors say federal agencies have jeopardized
scientific integrity in many ways, including stacking scientific advisory committees with
unqualified officials or industry representatives, blocking publication
of findings that could harm corporate interests and defending controversial
decisions with misleading information.
With respect to sex education, the report said, the Bush administration
has advanced what the report described as an unproven "abstinence only"
agenda and abolished an initiative at the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention that listed scientifically validated safe-sex techniques that
included using condoms.
On agricultural pollution, the Agriculture Department has issued tight
controls on government scientists seeking to publish information that could
have an adverse impact on industry, the report said. It cited the case
of a microbiologist, James Zahn, who was denied permission to publish
findings on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria near hog farms in the Midwest.
On the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the report said that Interior
Secretary Gale A. Norton, a firm advocate of drilling for oil in the region,
misrepresented to Congress her agency's scientific opinion on how
drilling would affect the region's caribou population. She told lawmakers most of
the caribou calving occurred outside the refuge; her scientists
said the opposite was true.
nytimes.com
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