20/07/2004

The Bush administration isn't just manipulating science for its own political ends in the realm of climate science...

Concern is growing within the American scientific community that the actions of the Bush administration are compromising the integrity of the scientific process in governmental policy making. A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists - an American science association - highlights how the Bush administration has distorted science on a range of issues, from emergency contraception to endangered species.

Scientific Integrity in Policy Making: Further investigation of the Bush administration's abuse of science lists several new instances of unscrupulous political intervention in US science that have occurred since an earlier UCS report on scientific integrity in policy making was published in February.

The UCS say these new incidents have been corroborated through in-depth interviews and internal government documents, including some documents released through the Freedom of Information Act.

They charge the Bush administration with:

* Complete disregard of scientific study, across several agencies, regarding the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining. Internal government documents initially obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that senior Bush administration officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior intentionally disregarded extensive scientific studies conducted by five separate federal and state agencies over four years in preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) on mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

*Censorship and distortion of scientific analysis, and manipulation of the scientific process, across several issues and agencies in regard to the Endangered Species Act.

* Distortion of scientific knowledge in decisions about emergency contraception. Advice given by two independent scientific advisory panels was overruled when an official at the Food and Drug Administration recently decided to deny women over-the-counter access to the emergency contraceptive levonorgestrel (sold under the brand name "Plan B"). Numerous FDA officials and medical advisers to FDA involved in and familiar with the approval process call the move an almost unprecedented repudiation of government scientific expertise. By law, the FDA is required to approve drugs that are found to be safe and effective.

* New evidence about the use of political litmus tests for scientific advisory panel appointees.

Read the full case details on the UCS website:

Mountain top removal mining

Endangered Species Act

Emergency Contraception

For more tales of Bush related scientific woe, read these recent articles in the British press...

Diana Liverman: Careful with that planet Mr President

Andrew Buncombe: The Defiance of Science

Ben Goldacre: Bushwhacked

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