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To those who've been keeping track at home, it was no surprise when the Bush administration dropped renowned cell biologist—and proponent of embryonic stem-cell research—Elizabeth Blackburn from the President's Council on Bioethics, in favor of Diana Schaub, a political scientist who believes cloning to be "evil."
Washington Monthly, April, 2004
To those who've been keeping track at home, it was no surprise when the Bush administration dropped renowned cell biologist--and proponent of embryonic stem-cell research--Elizabeth Blackburn from the President's Council on Bioethics, in favor of Diana Schaub, a political scientist who believes cloning to be "evil." The White House makes a habit of stacking federal agencies and scientific advisory committees with political appointees willing to disregard or manipulate fact when it doesn't comport with ideology.
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The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented some of the most egregious recent examples. James L. Connaughton, former power-company lobbyist and now chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, reportedly requested so many qualifiers and significant changes concerning climate change in the Envinronmental Protection Agency's June 2003 Report on the Environment that the entire section was cut from the final draft, issued shortly after EPA administrator Christie Whitman resigned. When findings from an independent study on the flow of the Missouri River did not fit Bush administration policy objectives, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Craig Manson authorized a new "SWAT team" of scientists to review the findings. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Paul Hoffman asked the U.N. World Heritage Committee to take Yellowstone National Park off its endangered sites list, despite a report written by the park's professional staff that had cautioned against such a move. In February, Arthur J. Lawrence, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, reworked an HHS report to downplay evidence of racial disparities in health care. Under the supervision of Jeffrey Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator for air programs, a dozen paragraphs in Bush's recently-proposed legislation on mercury pollution resembled or duplicated memos from leading D.C. corporate environmental law firm, Latham & Watkins, for whom Holmstead and his chief counsel, Bill Wehrum, had previously worked. And the Food and Drug Administration, whose advisory committee for reproductive-health drugs is chaired by anti-abortion activist W. David Hager, postponed this month their approval for over-the-counter sales of an emergency contraceptive known as "Plan B," despite findings from the agency's scientific advisory panel that the pill is safe and effective.
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