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“Scientists worry that US gov't classification of BSE prions as 'select agents' could hinder research”
www.biomedcentral.com...
The U.S. government is making it harder for scientists to speak to their global colleagues... Rep. Henry Waxman said he has a letter showing that the Health and Human Services Department has imposed new limits on who may speak to the World Health Organization.
Under the new policy, WHO must ask HHS for permission to speak to scientists and must allow HHS to choose who will respond.
"This policy is unprecedented. For the first time political appointees will routinely be able to keep the top experts in their field from responding to WHO requests for guidance on international health issues,... This is a raw attempt to exert political control over scientists and scientific evidence in the area of international health," Waxman wrote.
"Under the new policy the administration will be able to refuse to provide any experts whenever it wishes to stall international progress on controversial topics."
U.S. Charged With Silencing Scientists
"The US Government came under scathing attack from senior members of the medical establishment for blocking scientists from attending the International AIDS conference that opened in Bangkok at the weekend."
US bans scientists from AIDS event
"The absence of American researchers at the International AIDS Conference here this week has left many pondering why the decision was made to limit US attendance, and by whom. ...It came from above [Secretary of Health and Human Services] Tommy Thompson," said one US researcher who was told not to present her paper and had to find funding from other sources to attend. Although her work was cofunded by her university, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) component meant she was forbidden to present or talk to the media, she told The Scientist. "So I'm not going to give you my name." "
Key US scientists missing from the increasingly political International AIDS Conference
"Whether they are studying global warming, environmental toxins, or workplace safety, scientists who find their research unjustifiably shunned or suppressed face similar challenges from corporate and special interests, said (CSPI Integrity in Science project director) Merrill Goozner.
...Baird also took the scientific community to task for failing to respond to the suppression of science (and contended that) scientists ... must "stand up for the democratic process itself."
...An April 2004 General Accounting Office report titled "Federal Advisory Committees: Additional Guidance Could Help Agencies Better Ensure Independence and Balance" ...said some departments have appointed members of industry and stakeholder groups, persons who are exempt from conflict-of-interest rules. Industry leaders may therefore theoretically be profiting from their own advice."
Fighting for integrity. Scientists Dismayed at Corporate Influence, Politicization of Science
Originally posted by DrHoracid
Return of science and not political activisim. Science has been corrupted by the liberal agenda for 40 years now. It's time science return to science. If a radical enviro wants to save the wetlands then go save the wetlands. Just don't do it on MY tax dollars.
Science should not include any politcal action, just science.
The utlra left has ruined academia, get politic out of the classrooms.....
Originally posted by DrHoracid
It's time science return to science.
Science should not include any politcal action, just science.
The utlra left has ruined academia, get politic out of the classrooms.....
Originally posted by dgtempe
Syntaxer- you forgot unAmerican!
I wonder if this is related to the snuffed out microbiologists...who have met with death over the past years
Return of science and not political activisim. Science has been corrupted by the liberal agenda for 40 years now. It's time science return to science. If a radical enviro wants to save the wetlands then go save the wetlands. Just don't do it on MY tax dollars.
Originally posted by marg6043
Our government is not longer for the people, our government has been bought a long time ago by the big corporations that runs now this country they own the government they own the country and us included.
Originally posted by Megaquad
If those reports would undermine economy, I find "silencing scientists" more than acceptable. Since they work on taxpayer's money, government is their employer. Every employer has the right to introduce his own terms on its employees.
Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
Originally posted by Megaquad
If those reports would undermine economy, I find "silencing scientists" more than acceptable. Since they work on taxpayer's money, government is their employer. Every employer has the right to introduce his own terms on its employees.
but who is the governments employer? we are the King daddys here! ...
the government is supposed to work for us AND OUR INTERESTS...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
"No public expression of dissent is allowed in the federal government now," Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility known as PEER, said.
An EPA staffer wrote that building roads through swaths of land previously untouched would deteriorate the qualify of water in streams and have an impact on public drinking water.
Ruch said that EPA employees related that Steven Shimborg, a political appointee at the EPA, dismissed the staff draft as a "rant" and ordered the objections stricken from the EPA comments.
www.msnbc.msn.com...
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a frequent administration critic, said Friday it was the latest in a series of actions that in his view contradict the open search for scientific and medical evidence. “It appears to me that the administration is tightening their controls over their professionals and their scientists ... to favor its right-wing constituents,” Waxman said.
He asked Thompson in a letter to rescind the policy, which Waxman said “politicizes the process of providing the expert advice of U.S. scientists to the international community.”
www.sundayherald.com...
A series of internal government e-mails and memos unearthed by a Congressional investigation in the US reveals that senior Bush officials succeeded in weakening proposed new European regulations for controlling the chemicals used in everyday consumer products.
US officials talked of how to “target” the UK, how to “get to” the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and how to “take on” the Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom. They also wanted to “neutralise” the environmental arguments of the Swedish and Finnish governments.
Although the plan was warmly welcomed by environmentalists, it alarmed the $450 billion (£253bn) US chemical industry, including such corporate giants as DuPont, Dow and Intel. Over the last five years the industry has collectively given over £9.3 million to Republican politicians, including £514,000 to President George W Bush.
www.abs-cbnnews.com...
The two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.
"Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front" the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies."
:
www.sundayherald.com...
Dr Keith Baverstock, who was the World Health Organisation’s senior radiation adviser in Europe, says that science has been “perverted for political ends” by government agencies which should be protecting public health.
“Politics, aided and abetted by some in the scientific community, has poisoned the well which sustains democratic decision-making,” he told a conference on low-level radiation in Edinburgh yesterday.
www.biomedcentral.com...
The criticisms, which parallel those of the Bush administration in the United States, struck a chord within the science community.
"Policy solutions which are based on no science or bad science can be costly, both in terms of resources and reputation"