Pot, Meet Kettle
RODNEY BALKO BLOG
I'm sympathetic to this claim:
"President Bush's first surgeon general testified Tuesday that his speeches were censored to match administration political positions.
He was prevented from giving the public accurate scientific information on issues such as stem-cell research and teen pregnancy prevention, he said.
"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, told a congressional committee. "The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party."
Problem is, this complaint comes from the same guy who said obesity was a bigger threat than terrorism, who trumpeted the now thoroughly debunked claim that fat kills 400,000 people per year, and who said a single breath of secondhand smoke sets you down the road to lung cancer.
Richard Carmona has no room to talk about politicizing science. And frankly, neither do most of the people on the left who bitch about this issue. Both sides manipulate data to justify imposing their preferences on everyone else.
My solution? Make the science available, then let people make their own choices, and negotiate their own risks. theagitator.com |
