[Peace-discuss] Bush misuses scientific data

[patton paul]

As this article explains, Bush has missused and misrepresented evidence on
a lot of subjects besides Iraqi WMDs.
-Paul P.

Bush Misuses Science Data, Report Says
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 Q 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.

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Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-328-4064
homepage: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ppatton/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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