| Preeminent Scientists Protest
Bush Administration's Misuse of Science
Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science Recipients, and Other
Leading Researchers Call for End to Scientific Abuses
Washington, D.C.—Today, more than 60 leading scientists—including
Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency
directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement
calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific
integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists,
the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and
distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions
that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.
“Across a broad range of issues, the administration has undermined
the quality of the scientific advisory system and the morale of
the government’s outstanding scientific personnel,”
said Dr. Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell
University and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Whether
the issue is lead paint, clean air or climate change, this behavior
has serious consequences for all Americans.”
“Science, to quote President Bush's father, the former president,
relies on freedom of inquiry and objectivity,” said Russell
Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon and
Ford, who joined the scientists in calling for action. “But
this administration has obstructed that freedom and distorted that
objectivity in ways that were unheard of in any previous administration.”
The statement notes that while scientific input to the government
is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input
should be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective. However,
the administration of George W. Bush has disregarded this principle.
“The Earth system follows laws which scientists strive to
understand,” said Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland a Nobel laureate
in chemistry. “The public deserves rational decisionmaking
based on the best scientific advice about what is likely to happen,
not what political entities might wish to happen.”
“We are not simply raising warning flags about an academic
subject of interest only to scientists and doctors,” said
Dr. Neal Lane, a former director of the National Science Foundation
and a former Presidential Science Advisor. “In case after
case, scientific input to policymaking is being censored and distorted.
This will have serious consequences for public health.”
In conjunction with the statement, the Union of Concerned Scientists
today released a report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking that
investigates numerous allegations in the scientists’ statement
involving censorship and political interference with independent
scientific inquiry at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food
and Drug Administration, and the Departments of Health and Human
Services, Agriculture, Interior and Defense.
One example cited in the statement and report involves the suppression
of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air bill
would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and prevent
more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act.
“This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather
Service to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone
to think we have clear skies ahead,” said Kevin Knobloch,
president of the Union of Concerned Scientists “The hurricane
is still coming, but without factual information no one will be
ready for it.”
Comparing President Bush with his father, George H.W. Bush and
former president Richard M. Nixon, the statement warned that had
these former presidents similarly dismissed science in favor of
political ends, over 200,000 deaths and millions of respiratory
and cardiovascular disease cases would not have been prevented with
the signing of the original Clean Air Act and the 1990 amendments
to that Act.
The statement demands that the Bush administration’s “distortion
of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease”
and calls for Congressional oversight hearings, guaranteed public
access to government scientific studies and other measures to prevent
such abuses in the future. The statement further calls on the scientific,
engineering and medical communities to work together to reestablish
scientific integrity in the policymaking process.
# # #
Among the statement signers are:
Philip W. Anderson*†
David Baltimore*†
Paul Berg*†
Lewis Branscomb
Thomas Eisner*
Jerome Friedman†
Richard Garwin*
Walter Kohn*†
Neal Lane
Leon Lederman*†
Mario Molina†
W.K.H. Panofsky*
F. Sherwood Rowland†
J. Robert Schrieffer*†
Richard Smalley†
Harold E. Varmus*†
Steven Weinberg*†
E.O. Wilson*
* National Medal of Science
† Nobel laureate
|
