Bush Misuses Science, Data Are Distorted

The GanjaCat · Cannabis Sacrament Minister Joined: 22 Apr 2003 Posts: 216

This item was posted to DrugNews recently, and I have finally read the
complete report. It is an eye-opener, to put it mildly. I urge all U.S.
activists to download the complete report, print it out, and circulate it
at work or anywhere else that it might influence people to demand justice,
defeat Bush and his conspirators and eventually imprison them for high
crimes and treason. Note that there are important sections of the report
dealing with "substance abuse" and other topics of interest to drug policy
reformers.
-- Peter Webster / DrugNews

To view the full report: Politics and Science in the Bush Administration : http://www.truthout.org/mm_01/4.wax.pol.n.science.pdf

Bush Misuses Science, Report Says
Democrats Say Data Are Distorted to Boost Conservative Policies By Rick Weiss Washington Post

Friday 08 August 2003

The Bush administration has repeatedly mischaracterized scientific facts to
bolster its political agenda in areas ranging from abstinence education and
condom use to missile defense, according to a detailed report released
yesterday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

The White House quickly dismissed the report as partisan sniping.

The 40-page document, "Politics and Science in the Bush Administration,"
was compiled by the minority staff of the House Government Reform
Committee's special investigations division. It marks the launch of a new
effort by Waxman and others in Congress to highlight simmering anger among
scientists and others who believe that President Bush -- much more than his
predecessors -- has been spiking science with politics to justify
conservative policies in areas such as reproductive rights, embryo
research, energy policy and environmental health.

"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," according to the report,
posted yesterday at www.politicsandscience.org. "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."

White House spokesman Adam Levine said it would take time for the
administration to address the specifics of the report. However, he said,
"I'm hard-pressed to believe anyone would consider Congressman Waxman an
objective arbiter of scientific fact."

Several prestigious scientific journals have editorialized about the Bush
administration's dealings in science in recent months, including Science,
Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine.

An editor at Science, for example, recently said in print that the
administration was injecting politics into arenas of science "once immune
to this kind of manipulation."

And the editors of the Lancet noted "growing evidence of explicit vetting
of appointees to influential [scientific] panels on the basis of their
political or religious opinions" and warned against "any further right-wing
incursions" on those panels.

The General Accounting Office has been investigating such allegations since
some in Congress asked the agency to do so in September, but it has not
released any findings.

Among the purported abuses documented in the report:

• "Performance measures" used to determine the effectiveness of federally
funded "abstinence only" sex education programs were altered by the
administration in ways that made it easier to say the programs were
effective. And information about how to use a condom -- along with
scientific data showing that sex education does not lead to earlier or
increased sexual activity in young people -- was removed from a Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

• In testimony before Congress, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton omitted
-- and in at least one case misstated -- federal scientists' findings that
Arctic oil drilling could harm wildlife.

• The administration altered a National Cancer Institute Web site in a way
that wrongly implied there was good evidence linking abortions to breast
cancer.

• The Education Department circulated a memo instructing employees to
remove materials from the department's Web site not "consistent with the
Administration's philosophy," prompting complaints about censorship from
national educational organizations.

• 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."

A spokesman for Waxman said the report will be updated on the Web as new
examples arise.

To view the full report: Politics and Science in the Bush Administration : http://www.truthout.org/mm_01/4.wax.pol.n.science.pdf

**Ferre** · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:58 pm Post subject:

Yes, LIES, LIES, LIES and MORE LIES that's what BUSH STANDS FOR! sickening.
_________________
█ Please read the Board Rules and Posting, and you
█ Radio Free Amsterdam
People who know truth, speak truth.
Those who don't, quote scriptures.