Bush Administration
'Distorts Science' -Report
Wed Feb
18, 4:50 PM ET
By Maggie
Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Top scientists and environmentalists on
Wednesday
accused the Bush administration of suppressing and
distorting
scientific findings that run counter to its own policies.
They
backed a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that said
the
administration had suppressed research on global warming, air
quality,
sexual health, cancer and other issues.
The
report said there had been a systematic effort to manipulate the
government's
supposedly independent scientific advisory system "to
prevent
the appearance of advice that might run counter to the
administration's
political agenda."
"We
are not ... taking issue with the administration's policies. We
are
taking issue with the administration's distortion of the process
with
which science enters into its decisions," Dr. Kurt Gottfried, a
professor
of physics at
told
reporters.
Russell
Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (news -
web
sites) under former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and
Gerald
Ford, said that during his tenure "I do not recall ever
receiving
a suggestion, let alone an order, from the White House as
to how I
should make a regulatory decision."
"How
times have changed," Train added. [...]
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