More Junk Science

[Guest guest]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/33/we_525_02c.html

 

More Junk Science

 

 

August 12, 2003

 

More Junk Science

En route to Denver, where he plans to raise more money for his campaign coffers,

President Bush made a stop in Summerhaven, Arizona. The mountain community

Northeast of Tuscon was recently scorched by wildfires, Reuters reports. Ne'er

was there a fairer time for the Texas boy-king to push his 'healthy forests

initiative' -- a plan that proposes an obvious (albeit somewhat comical)

solution to preventing forest fires: cut down the trees. Forest experts agree

that strategic thinning of forests does reduce wildfire risk. But critics of the

healthy forest plan charge that the President is manipulating science to benefit

the timber industry and " gut bedrock environmental laws, " as Gary Kozel of the

Wilderness Society put it.

Kozel's complaint is just one voice in a growing chorus of critics bemoaning the

questionable use of science by the White House. While many of the scrutinized

policies are environmental, Bush's zest for bastardizing scientific findings has

allegedly bubbled over into other political issues, overflowing into the

manipulation of research funding, influencing committees on issues from missile

defense to reproductive health, from substance abuse to prescription drugs. The

allegations are all documented in a recent report by the House Government Reform

Committee's special investigations division lead by Representative Henry Waxman

(D-CA), reports Rick Weiss of the Washington Post.

Waxman's committee, now under fire by the administration as pushing a partisan

agenda, hypothesizes that the misuse and manipulation of science is part of a

deliberate ploy to keep Bush's industrial and religious cronies safe from

governmental regulation. The introduction to the Reform Committee's 40 page

report describes the trangressions and their common link:

" 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 subjects involved span a broad range, but they

share a common attribute: the beneficiaries of the scientific distortions are

important supporters of the President, including social conservatives and

powerful industry groups. "

 

A weighty charge, indeed, but the Committee does document examples. For

instance, as Maggie Fox of Reuters reports, the government posted a page on the

National Cancer Institute's website that incorrectly linked breast cancer to

abortion. And Bush's abstinence agenda has even called condom use into question

by making hay of the fact that condom use does not prevent all sexually

transmitted diseases. One extremely common (but often asymptomatic and harmless)

virus, called HPV, has been linked to cervical cancer. HPV can be transmitted

through skin-to-skin contact, hence, condoms help prevent it but aren't

foolproof. To the abstinence camp, this is an argument not only against sex, but

also against condoms. This logic prompted the non-profit Alan Guttmacher

Institute to issue its own report. The Guttmacher charges the administration

with " distorting data on condoms and cervical cancer to try to discourage condom

use and promote instead its abstinence-only agenda. "

 

Bush's new global AIDS law requires research into condom use in sub-Saharan

Africa to " reduce deaths from cervical cancer, " according to the Cancer

Institute. Experts contend that discouraging condom use in the region will only

exacerbate the AIDS epidemic, as well as help spread other sexually-transmitted

diseases.

Most jarring, however, are the report's description of Bush's appointments to

(and removals from) committees meant to provide unbiased scientific oversight.

According to Weiss, the president's view on condom use isn't the only troubling

aspect of his AIDS policy: Bush has appointed to key scientific advisory

committees numerous people with political, rather than scientific, credentials.

For example, his appointee to a presidential AIDS advisory committee, marketing

consultant Jerry Thacker, has described homosexuality as a 'deathstyle' and

referred to AIDS as the 'gay plague.' "

And just as the federal Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning and

Prevention was discussing the possible lowering of lead exposure limits, Bush

dismissed three panelists, replacing them with individuals with ties to the lead

industry. Lead causes neurological damage and can diminish attention span and

intellectual development in children, reports Matt Leingang of the Rochester

Democrat and Chronicle.

 

One of the dropped panelists, pediatrician and professor Dr. Michael Weitzman,

still stands to influence the committee: " ...[T]he CDC recently tapped

[Weitzman] to issue a report in October that pulls together all the known

research on blood-lead safety levels. The report will be presented to the very

advisory committee from which he was dropped. "

But in his place, the administration appointed Dr. William Banner, an expert

witness for lead paint producer Sherwin-Williams paint company. Banner,

according to the Waxman report, testified in 2002 that children's brains could

be exposed to seven times the current limits (the limit in question when

Weitzman was released). While Weitzman, a professor and pediatrician, is an

expert whose work deals directly with children. Banner works only with

experimental rats, and, of course, with Sherwin-Williams. Fancy that.