More than 60 distinguished scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, blasted the Bush administration last week for suppressing and distorting scientific information that does not support its predetermined agenda. “When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions,” according to a statement signed by the scientists. “This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government’s own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice.” The statement accompanied the release of a comprehensive report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which documents numerous cases of the administration putting politics over science. For example:

• The White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget forced EPA to substantially alter findings on global warming for a draft “Report on the Environment.” For instance, EPA deleted a temperature record covering 1,000 years in order to emphasize, “a recent, limited analysis [which] supports the administration’s favored message,” according to an internal EPA memo obtained by UCS.
• OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy suppressed and sought to manipulate an EPA report on children’s health, which concluded that 8 percent of women ages 16 to 49 have mercury levels in the blood that could lead to reduced IQ and motor-skills for their offspring. The report was released only after it was leaked to the press by frustrated EPA staff, as OMB Watch discussed in a previous article. In place of strong action on mercury emissions, most of which come from coal-fired power plants, the administration has instead put up a political smokescreen. As UCS notes, “In a more recent development, the new rules the EPA has finally proposed for regulating power plants’ mercury emissions were discovered to have no fewer than 12 paragraphs lifted, sometimes verbatim, from a legal document prepared by industry lawyers.”
• The administration blocked the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from adequately assessing the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education programs. Among other things, CDC was prevented from charting the birth rate of female program participants. “In place of such established measures, the Bush administration has required the CDC to track only participants’ program attendance and attitudes, measures designed to obscure the lack of efficacy of abstinence-only programs,” UCS reports. Along similar lines, the administration altered information on the CDC’s web site to raise doubts about the efficacy of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and suggest a link between abortion and breast cancer.
• The administration has blocked a USDA microbiologist, James Zahn, from publishing research on the potential hazards of airborne bacteria from farm waste. Zahn had discovered significant levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria near hog farms in Iowa and Missouri. In Feb. 2002, USDA instructed staff scientists that they need to seek prior approval before publishing research or speaking publicly on “sensitive issues,” including “agriculture practices with negative health and environmental consequences, e.g., global climate change; contamination of water by hazardous materials (nutrients, pesticides, and pathogens); animal feeding operation or crop production practices that negatively impact soil, water, or air quality.” Zahn told UCS this represents “a choke hold on objective research.”
• Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services, stacked a CDC advisory panel on childhood lead poisoning with scientists likely to oppose a tougher lead standard, at least two of which had financial ties to the lead industry. Likewise, numerous other scientific advisory bodies have been stacked to reach a predetermined conclusion. This includes committees on ergonomics, reproductive health, and nuclear weapons and arms control.

UCS contends that this manipulation of science is unprecedented, and provides testimonials from political appointees of past Republican and Democratic administrations. In the case of EPA, for example, Russell Train, former EPA administrator under President Nixon, commented, “The agency has had little or no independence. I think that is a very great mistake, and one for which the American people could pay over the long run in compromised health and reduced quality of life.”