Politics in the lab hits US scientific integrity

Prominent Democrats in Congress have expressed frustration over the mixing of politics with science.

"I think what they've done is unprecedented," says Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California, ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee. "Even prominent Republicans who served under Presidents Reagan, Ford, and Nixon are alarmed.... Leading scientists both inside and outside the administration have said politics is getting into previously protected areas."

Mr. Waxman's committee issued a report in August concluding that the administration's political interference with science has led to "misleading statements by the president, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered websites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications, and the gagging of scientists."

The report - which can be seen at www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience - alleges abuses in 21 areas ranging from abstinence-only sex education to breast cancer, drinking water, food safety, global warming, prescription-drug advertising, stem-cell research, and workplace safety.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the report as "riddled with distortions, inaccuracies, and omissions." And, he said, "This administration looks at the facts, and reviews the best available science based on what's right for the American people. The only one who is playing politics about science is Congressman Waxman."

Several senior-science policy specialists say that while the Waxman report has a partisan tone, most of its major points are well taken. Neal Lane, who served as director of the National Science Foundation and then as presidential science adviser during the Clinton administration, observed: "It's always the case in the White House ... that science is one of a number of sets of issues that a president, a political policymaker, has to consider when they're making decisions. Sometimes the decision goes in a way that the science would not suggest. But there's such a long list of egregious actions taken by this administration that I think it essentially gives a false impression of what the science really is and strongly suggests the administration simply doesn't care to find out."

Prof. Lewis Branscomb, a science policy expert at Harvard and former director of the National Bureau of Standards under Nixon, notes that on the question of stacking federal scientific advisory committees, "I'm not aware that [Nixon] ever hand-picked ideologues to serve on advisory committees, or dismissed from advisory committees very well-qualified people if he didn't like their views.... What's going on now is in many ways more insidious. It happens behind the curtain. I don't think we've had this kind of cynicism with respect to objective scientific advice since I've been watching government, which is quite a long time."

Perhaps the corrosive issue of political interference with science won't be crucial to Bush's reelection chances, but by undercutting the integrity of the scientific community, it may be crucial to the long-term quality of life not just in the US, but also in other countries around the world.

• Barton Reppert, a former Associated Press reporter and editor in Washington, New York, and Moscow, is a freelance science and technology writer.

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