Bush’s determination to march America back to the Dark Ages
White House Tries to Rein In Scientists
The Bush administration has ordered that government scientists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization, the leading international health and science agency.
A top official from the Health and Human Services Department in April asked the WHO to begin routing requests for participation in its meetings to the department’s secretary for review, rather than directly invite individual scientists, as has long been the case.
Officials at the WHO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, have refused to implement the request, saying it could compromise the independence of international scientific deliberations. Denis G. Aitken, WHO assistant director-general, said Friday that he had been negotiating with Washington in an effort to reach a compromise.
The request is the latest instance in which the Bush administration has been accused of allowing politics to intrude into once-sacrosanct areas of scientific deliberation. It has been criticized for replacing highly regarded scientists with industry and political allies on advisory panels. A biologist who was at odds with the administration’s position on stem-cell research was dismissed from a presidential advisory commission. This year, 60 prominent scientists accused the administration of “misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes.”
Politics and science don’t mix. By trying to control which scientists participate in international discussions and, by implication, what they say, the Bush administration is undermining the independence of scientists and limiting their ability to do research into areas which don’t guarantee politically acceptable results - which is pretty much all of them.
[Dr. D.A. Henderson] said he could not recall having to go through government bureaucrats to invite scientists to participate in expert panels, except in the case of small Eastern European countries.
Which describes, far better than I could, exactly where the Bush administration is trying to take American science.
(via SEB)
Wednesday 30 Jun 2004 | Paul | The Pit
