EXECUTIVE BRANCH'S ABUSE OF SCIENCE

Lies to cover lies—the White House’s response to this position paper

Analysis of White House Claims
UCS review of April 2, 2004 document from White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

On April 2, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a statement by John H. Marburger, III, the director of OSTP, that claims the descriptions of the incidents in the UCS report are all “false,” “wrong,” or “a distortion.” Analysis of the particulars in the White House document shows that these claims are unjustified. Aside from a couple of minutiae detailed in the UCS analysis, the White House document fails to offer substantive evidence to support its claims. Instead, the White House document often offers irrelevant information and fails to address the central point of many charges in the UCS report.

The preamble to the White House document deals at length with the administration’s support of funding for scientific research. It should be noted that neither the statement by the scientists nor the supporting UCS report discusses the issue of research funding. That said, it should be noted that neither document was intended as a criticism of Dr. Marburger’s efforts on behalf of scientific research.

UCS stands by the findings and conclusions of its report. The UCS analysis provides many examples, which cover the spectrum of charges made in the scientists’ statement and in the UCS report, to demonstrate that contrary to the claims in the White House document, the administration has in fact frequently attempted to undermine scientific integrity when, to quote the scientists’ original statement, “scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals.”

Cases: The Environment
Multiple Air Pollutants Information Censored

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

As an alternative to the president’s Clear Skies Act, Senators Thomas Carper (D-DE), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) have proposed a measure that would control carbon dioxide in addition to sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) evaluated this proposal but long withheld important results on the costs and benefits of the alternative bill from the senators. Several months before the EPA finally provided them the results, a copy of an internal EPA briefing based on the study was leaked to the Washington Post.⁴⁰ According to the briefing, the EPA concluded that the Senate proposal would cut the three pollutants earlier and in larger quantities than the Clear Skies Act, result in 17,800 fewer expected deaths by 2020, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions at “negligible” cost to industry.

The suppression of research on air pollution is of serious concern because of its enormous impact on public health. The Clean Air Act, which passed during the Nixon administration and was strengthened in 1990 during the first Bush administration, has saved American lives. For the period up to 1990, the EPA found that, without the act, “an additional 205,000 Americans would have died prematurely and millions more would have suffered illnesses ranging from mild respiratory symptoms to heart disease, chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, and other severe respiratory problems. In addition, the lack of the Clean Air Act controls on the use of leaded gasoline would have resulted in major increases in child IQ loss and adult hypertension, heart disease and stroke.”⁴¹ In its 1999 study, the EPA projected that in 2010 alone, the 1990 strengthening amendments “will prevent 23,000 premature deaths, and avert over 1.7 million incidents of asthma attacks . . . 67,000 incidents of chronic and acute bronchitis . . . 4.1 million lost work days.”

According to the New York Times, EPA staff members recounted that they discussed the EPA’s unreleased report indicating the advantages of the Carper-Gregg-Alexander-Chafee proposal at a May meeting with Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant administrator for air programs. As these EPA staffers contend, Holmstead wondered out loud, “How can we justify Clear Skies if this gets out?” although he has since stated that he did not “recall making any specific remarks.”⁴²

Information on Power Plant Mercury Emissions Censored

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

The George W. Bush administration has long attempted to avoid issuing new standards to regulate mercury emissions by coal-fired power plants based on Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT), as required by the Clean Air Act.²⁹ Mercury is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage and harm reproduction in women and wildlife; coal-fired power plants are the nation’s largest source of mercury air emissions, emitting about 48 tons annually.³⁰

As a prelude to the current debate, published accounts to date have documented that senior Bush officials suppressed and sought to manipulate government information about mercury contained in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on children’s health and the environment. As the EPA readied the report for completion in May 2002, the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) began a lengthy review of the document. In February 2003, after nine months of delay by the White House, a frustrated EPA official leaked the draft report to the Wall Street Journal, including its finding that eight percent of women between the ages of 16 and 49 have mercury levels in the blood that could lead to reduced IQ and motor skills in their offspring.³¹

The finding provides strong evidence in direct contradiction to the administration’s desired policy of reducing regulation on coal-fired power plants and was, many sources suspect, the reason for the lengthy suppression by the White House. On February 24, 2003, just days after the leak, the EPA’s report was finally released to the public.³² Perhaps most troubling about this incident is that the report may never have surfaced at all had it not been leaked to the press.

In a more recent development, the new rules the EPA has finally proposed for regulating power plants’ mercury emissions were discovered to have no fewer than 12 paragraphs lifted, sometimes verbatim, from a legal document prepared by industry lawyers.³³ Chagrined EPA officials contend that the language crept into their proposed rules “through the interagency process.” But Robert Perciasepe, who headed the EPA air policy office during the Clinton administration, stated the obvious when he called the wholesale use of industry language “inappropriate.” As Perciasepe told a Washington Post reporter, “The regulations are supposed to be drafted by the staff—the people in the science program and regulatory branches.”³⁴

Drawing upon interviews with no fewer than five current career employees, reporters at the Los Angeles Times have exposed in detail the process that led to the proposed mercury regulations. According to these and other sources, political appointees at the EPA completely bypassed agency professional and scientific staff as well as a federal advisory panel in crafting the proposed new rules.³⁵

Bruce C. Buckheit, who retired in December 2003 as director of EPA’s Air Enforcement Division after serving in major federal environmental posts for two decades, says that his enforcement division was not even allowed to review the mercury regulations prior to their release. As Buckheit puts it, “the new mercury rules were hatched at the White House; the Environmental Protection Agency’s experts were simply not consulted at all.”³⁶

In particular, EPA staff members say they pointed out the fact that comparative scientific studies of the effects of the proposed rules were required by EPA procedure. But these sources contend that they were explicitly told by Jeffrey R. Holmstead, head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, that such studies would not be conducted partly because of “White House concern.”³⁷ Buckheit and other EPA veterans say they cannot recall another instance when the agency’s technical experts were so thoroughly shut out of the process in developing a major regulatory proposal. According to Buckheit, the incident is representative of “a degree of politicization of the work of the Environmental Protection Agency that goes beyond anything I have seen in my career in government.”³⁸

In the wake of these serious allegations, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt has reportedly ordered additional studies of the effects of the proposed mercury rule. Administrator Leavitt has also said information related to media reports on the agency’s inclusion of industry-drafted language in its proposed rule has been forwarded to the EPA’s inspector general for possible investigation.³⁹

Science Overruled on Emergency Contraception

This page is an excerpt from the July 2004 update to the February 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

An official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) overruled the advice of the agency's staff and two independent scientific advisory panels when he decided recently to deny women over-the-counter access to the emergency contraceptive levonorgestrel (sold under the brand name "Plan B"). Numerous FDA officials and medical advisers to FDA involved in and familiar with the approval process call the move an almost unprecedented repudiation of government scientific expertise. By law, the FDA is required to approve drugs that are found to be safe and effective.

In the case, Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, acknowledged to reporters recently that he overturned the recommendations of his own staff and two FDA advisory panels in declaring the drug "not approvable" for nonprescription status.³⁰ A joint meeting of two independent FDA scientific advisory committees voted 23 to 4 in December 2003 to recommend the emergency contraceptive as an over-the-counter drug. The panel also voted unanimously that the drug could be safely sold over the counter.³¹

Plan B, the drug in question, consists of two high-dose contraceptive pills that either interfere with ovulation or fertilization, or prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. Emergency contraception can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy, but is more effective the sooner it is taken. Manufactured by New York-based Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Plan B was approved as a prescription drug in 1999; another emergency contraceptive, Preven, was approved in 1998. Since then, millions of women in the United States have used such drugs to prevent pregnancy. Public health officials and researchers around the world widely agree that Plan B is a safe and effective means to prevent an unplanned pregnancy and to reduce the frequency of abortions. The drug is available without a prescription in 33 countries around the world. Its switch to nonprescription status in the United States was also endorsed by some 70 scientific organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.³²

In the "not approvable" letter to Barr Pharmaceuticals, Galson notes that only 29 of the 585 women in the data submitted by the company about Plan B were 14 to 16 years of age and none was under 14 years of age. While Galson does not cite any particular safety concern for this age group, he writes "we have concluded that you have not provided adequate data to support a conclusion that Plan B can be used safely by young adolescent women for emergency contraception without the professional supervision of a practitioner licensed by law to administer the drug."³³

James Trussell, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University and a member of one of the FDA advisory committees that recommended the drug's approval for over-the-counter sale, says that after hearing many hours of testimony and reviewing thousands of pages of medical literature, "[O]ur committee had absolutely no concern about the use of this drug by young girls." Advisory committee member Dr. Julie Johnson, a professor of pharmacy in Gainesville, Florida, touted Plan B to be the safest product the committee had reviewed in several years.³⁴

Advisory committee members also underscored the importance of making recommendations based on a risk-benefit analysis, particularly with regard to young people. Pediatrician Dr. Leslie Clapp from Buffalo, New York, spoke about her own clinical practice and acknowledged that, while abstinence is the best option for teens, "[I]f you are a sexually active teen…or eleven year old, it's certainly a bad situation…I think their families and they would have far preferred this option than pregnancy, and it would have been safer."³⁵ Dr. Abby Berenson, a gynecologist from Galveston, Texas, who treats adolescents, echoed the sentiment, arguing further that, "Barriers to use," such as a prescription requirement for Plan B, "will ultimately…result in unintended pregnancies,"³⁶ which pose disproportionate health risks to adolescent women, including premature labor, anemia, and high blood pressure.³⁷

Medical professionals, including several other prominent members of the advisory committees, take issue with Galson's claim of lack of data on young women. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Society of Adolescent Medicine noted in a May 27, 2004, statement that approximately one-fifth of the participants in the Barr trials were between the ages of 14 and 16, which represents ages below or consistent with the average age of first intercourse.³⁸ In a recent editorial letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, three physicians noted that the advisory panels considered data that showed adolescents understood 60 percent to 97 percent of the key communication objectives of the Plan B label without help from a health care professional. These results are comparable to those for the group as a whole and well within the standards for the approval of other over-the-counter drugs.³⁹ As Dr. Trussell puts it, "The objection the FDA is offering in denying the switch to a nonprescription status is nothing more than a made-up reason intended to sound plausible. From a scientific standpoint, it is complete and utter nonsense."⁴⁰

Dr. Trussell says that he has no doubt that politics trumped science in the FDA’s bureaucratic process in this case.⁴¹ In an internal FDA memo obtained by the Associated Press, Galson apparently tried to quell similar questions from his own staff about the role political considerations may have played in the decision, noting that "Some staff have expressed the concern that this decision is based on non-medical implications of teen sexual behavior, or judgments about the propriety of this activity."⁴² Galson responded by claiming that politics did not influence his decision. In a press conference following his decision, Galson denied meeting personally with White House officials in the decision-making process and claimed to have "no knowledge" that any meetings between FDA and White House officials on the Plan B decision took place.⁴³

Nonetheless, Dr. Galson broke with agency protocol by overruling FDA staff scientists who had concluded that this drug met FDA criteria for nonprescription status and overwhelmingly recommended the switch. In overruling his staff and the advisory committee, Galson offered no substantial new evidence, and took the unusual step of writing the official response to the drug company himself.⁴⁴

FDA insiders also note that after the hearings on the matter late last year, conservative groups had mounted a political campaign to try to block the drug's approval. Conservative lawmakers began efforts to undermine the application in December 2003 when members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the FDA Commissioner decrying purported risks of nonprescription Plan B to teens. The advisory committees addressed these claims and implicitly rejected many—if not all—in their evaluation of the drug's risk-benefit profile. After the overwhelmingly positive recommendation by the advisory committees, 49 members of Congress wrote to President Bush urging White House involvement, a move intended to supersede the FDA's authority on this matter.⁴⁵ Shortly thereafter, on February 13, FDA officials notified Barr Pharmaceuticals that the agency would extend by 90 days its deadline for considering the switch to over-the-counter status.⁴⁶

At this point in the process, three prominent doctors, including Alastair Wood, a professor of medicine and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University who also serves as an FDA advisory panel member, published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, stating that, "FDA's decision-making process is being influenced by political considerations." As the authors noted, such political considerations have normally been kept out of the decision-making process at the FDA. Prior to this case, they write, approval has always been "based on scientific evidence from well-designed clinical trials with adequate power to establish efficacy and rule out toxicity at some reasonable level of confidence," adding that the agency has an obligation under U.S. law "to approve drugs for sale once their efficacy and safety have been demonstrated." In this case, they write, "there is no medical dispute" on these issues.⁴⁷

Echoing these findings, Dr. Paul Blumenthal, a respected obstetrician-gynecologist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, says Plan B meets all the scientific criteria for an over-the-counter drug: it is not toxic, there is no potential for addiction or abuse, and there is no need for medical screening. Commenting on Galson's "not approvable" decision, Blumenthal says, "What the FDA has just done is deny access to an important pregnancy preventive agent to millions of women." As he puts it: "This is nothing but politics trumping science."⁴⁸

Former FDA officials told The New York Times that they could not remember a single instance when someone in Dr. Galson's position had overruled both an advisory committee and staff recommendations. Dr. Robert R. Fenichel, who left the agency in 2000 after 12 years, for instance, called the action "simply unheard of."⁴⁹

As FDA advisory panel member Trussell charges, "Unfortunately, for the first time in history, the FDA is not acting as an independent agency but rather as a tool of the White House." Trussell adds, it is "a very sad day when politicians start making medical decisions."⁵⁰

30. Galson, S. 2004. Comments presented at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) press conference. May 7.
31. FDA. 2003. “Transcript of the December 16, 2003 meeting of the FDA Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee in Joint Session with the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.” December 16. Available online at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/transcripts/4015T1.DOC.
32. Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 2004. “Barr Receives Not Approvable Letter for Over-the-Counter Emergency Contraceptive.” Press release. May 6. Available online at http://www.barrlabs.com/pages/nprpr.html.
33. Galson, S., acting director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation. 2004. Letter to Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NDA 21-045/S-011. May 6. Available online at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/planB/planB_NALetter.pdf.
34. FDA. 2003. “Transcript of the December 16, 2003 meeting of the FDA Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee in Joint Session with the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.” December 16. Available online at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/transcripts/4015T1.DOC.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. March of Dimes. 2002. “Facts You Should Know About Teenage Pregnancy.” March. Available online at www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/681_1159.asp.
38. American Academy of Pediatrics. 2004. “Plan B Should Be Over-the-Counter for Adolescents.” Press release. May 27. Available at http://www.aap.org/advocacy/washing/Plan_B.htm.
39. Drazen, J.M. et al. 2004. “The FDA, Politics, and Plan B,” The New England Journal of Medicine 350(23):2413-2414. Correspondence. June 3. Excerpt available online at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/350/23/2413.
40. Author interview with James Trussell, May 2004.
41. Ibid.
42. As quoted in Neergaard, L. 2004. “FDA rejects OTC morning-after pill sales,” Associated Press. May 6.
43. Galson, S. 2004. Comments presented at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) press conference. May 7.
44. See Kaufman, M. 2004. “FDA rejects over-the-counter ‘Plan B’,” The Washington Post. May 7.
45. See Kaufman, M. “Debate Intensifies Over ‘Morning After’ Pill,” The Washington Post. February 13.
46. See Barr Laboratories, Inc. 2004. “Barr Says FDA Extends Plan B Emergency Contraceptive PDUFA Date.” Press release. February 13. Available online at http://www.barrlabs.com/pages/nprpr.html.
47. Drazen, J.M. et al. 2004. “The FDA, Politics, and Plan B,” New England Journal of Medicine 350(15):1561-1562. Editorial. April 8. Excerpt available online at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/350/15/1561.
48. As quoted in Graham, J. 2004. “’Morning after’ pill restricted by FDA,” Chicago Tribune. May 7.
49. See Harris, G. “Morning-after-pill ruling defies norm,” The New York Times. May 8.
50. Author interview with James Trussell, May 2004. See also Kemper, V. 2004. “FDA: Doctor must still OK ‘morning-after’ pill,” Los Angeles Times. May 7.

Cases: Public Health
Scientific Knowledge on Abstinence-only Education Distorted

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

Since his tenure as governor of Texas, President George W. Bush has made no secret of his view that sex education should teach teenagers “abstinence only” rather than including information on other ways to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Unfortunately, despite spending more than $10 million on abstinence-only programs in Texas alone, this strategy has not been shown to be effective at curbing teen pregnancies or halting the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

During President Bush’s tenure as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, for instance, with abstinence-only programs in place, the state ranked last in the nation in the decline of teen birth rates among 15- to 17-year-old females.⁴³ Overall, the teen pregnancy rate in Texas was exceeded by only four other states.⁴⁴ The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all support comprehensive sex education programs that encourage abstinence while also providing adolescents with information on how to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases.⁴⁵ In fact, a recent systematic analysis of pregnancy prevention strategies for adolescents found that, far from reducing unwanted pregnancies, abstinence programs actually “may increase pregnancies in partners of male participants.”⁴⁶

The fact that the Bush administration ignores the scientific evidence, troubling though that is, is not the primary concern of this report. Rather, it is the fact that the Bush administration distorted science-based performance measures to test whether abstinence-only programs were proving effective, such as charting the birth rate of female program participants.⁴⁷ In place of such established measures, the Bush administration has required the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to track only participants’ program attendance and attitudes, measures designed to obscure the lack of efficacy of abstinence-only programs.⁴⁸

In addition to distorting performance measures, the Bush administration has suppressed other information at odds with its preferred policies. At the behest of higher-ups in the Bush administration, according to a source inside the CDC, the agency was forced to discontinue a project called “Programs that Work,” which identified sex education programs found to be effective in scientific studies.⁴⁹ All five of the programs identified in 2002 involved comprehensive sex education for teenagers and none were abstinence-only programs. In ending the project, the CDC removed all information about these programs from its website.

One scientist, recently departed from a high-ranking position at the CDC, recounts that, on one occasion, even top staff scientists at the agency were required by the administration to attend a day-long session purportedly devoted to the “science of abstinence.” As this source puts it, “out of the entire session, conducted by a nonscientist, the only thing resembling science was one study reportedly in progress and another not even begun.”⁵⁰ Despite the absence of supporting data, this source and others contend, CDC scientists were regularly reminded to push the administration’s abstinence-only stance. As he puts it, “The effect
was very chilling.”⁵¹

43. See “Science or Politics? George W. Bush and the Future of Sexuality Education in the United States,” fact sheet published by Advocates for Youth. Online at www.advocatesforyouth.org.
44. Ibid.
45. Welfare Reform: A Review of Abstinence Education and Transitional Medical Assistance, April 23, 2002: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Health, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, 107th Congress, 2002, testimony of David W. Kaplan, MD.
46. A. DiCenso, G. Guyatt, A. Willan, and L. Griffi th, “Interventions to reduce unintended pregnancies among adolescents: systematic review of randomized controlled trials,” British Medical Journal, Volume 324, June 15, 2002.
47. These former performance measures can be found at Federal Register 65:69562-65 (November 17, 2000).
48. The new Bush administration performance measures are detailed in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, SPRANS Community-Based Abstinence Education Program, Pre-Application Workshop (December, 2002). Online at www.mchb.hrsa.gov/programs/adolescents/abedguidetext.htm.
49. Author interview with current CDC staff member, name withheld on request, November 2003.
50. Author interview with former CDC staff member, name withheld on request, March 2004.
51. Ibid.

SKEPTIC SOCIETY CARRIES REPORT OF WHITEHOUSE LYING

Cases: Public Health
Scientific Knowledge on Breast Cancer Distorted

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

In a case the New York Times labeled “an egregious distortion of the evidence,”⁵⁴ information suggesting a link between abortion and breast cancer was posted on the National Cancer Institute website despite objections from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) staff, who noted that substantial scientific study has long refuted the connection. After public outcry on the matter, the information has since been revised and no longer implies a connection.⁵⁵While the correct information is currently available on the website, it is troubling that public pressure was necessary to halt this promotion of scientifically inaccurate information to the public.

54. “Abortion and Breast Cancer,” New York Times, January 6, 2003. For a detailed account of this issue, see K. Malek, “The abortion-breast cancer link: how politics trumped science and informed consent,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Summer 2003. Online at www.abortionno.org/pdf/breastcancer.pdf.
55. “Summary Report: Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Workshop,” National Cancer Institute, March 2003. Online at www.cancer.gov/cancerinfo/ere-workshop-report.

Cases: Advisory Committees
Litmus Test for Appointees at the National Institute on Drug Abuse

The following example is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

Dr. William R. Miller

Political litmus tests have reportedly been applied by representatives of the George W. Bush administration to candidates for scientific advisory positions at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). One well-publicized assertion involves Dr. William R. Miller of the University of New Mexico.

Miller, a distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry, the pioneer of a leading substance abuse treatment, and author of more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, says that his 2002 interview for a slot on a National Institute on Drug Abuse advisory panel included questions about whether his views were congruent with those held by President Bush and whether he had voted for Bush in 2000. Presumably based on his answers, Miller was denied the appointment.³⁵

In the July 2004 update to the February 2004 report, UCS reported on another instance of the use of political litmus tests within NIDA:

Dr. Claire Sterk
During her confirmation process for the Council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Sterk reports she was subjected to repeated questioning about her political views in three separate calls from a White House staff member. Among the questions she was asked, and refused to answer, was whether she had voted for President Bush.

"I have nothing to hide," Dr. Sterk commented. "But I told the questioner that I did not see the connection between his line of questioning and my work on a scientific advisory council. And I refused to answer unless the questioner could tell me that I would have some kind of particular political policy role, which I knew I would not."¹¹²

Despite her refusal, however, Dr. Sterk states that the White House staffer continued trying to elicit an answer about her vote in the presidential election "for roughly 15 minutes." Dr. Sterk was asked many other overtly political questions that she refused to answer, such as whether she supported "faith-based" drug treatment programs. While Dr. Sterk was confirmed for a position on the NIH council, she says she believes that a high-ranking NIH official may well have intervened on behalf of her nomination. Nonetheless, she says she finds it deeply disturbing that the Bush administration would subject its nominees for a scientific advisory position to such intrusive, partisan political questions.

Like Dr. Sterk, other scientists interviewed by UCS expressed dismay and discouragement about what they consider to be an overt politicization of the appointment process for scientific advisory positions. Scientists who have served Democratic and Republican administrations alike agree that questions of political affiliation have no place in the confirmation process for our highest echelon of science advisers and that the current administration's practice is reprehensible.

As Donald Kennedy, editor of Science and former president of Stanford University, has noted, "I don’t think any administration has penetrated so deeply into the advisory committee structure as this one, and I think it matters. If you start picking people by their ideology instead of their scientific credentials you are inevitably reducing the quality of the advisory group."¹¹³

Read about other scientific abuses at NIH from the July 2004 update:

Fogarty International Center

35. Rather than focusing on Miller’s scientific qualifications, a White House liaison to the Department of Health and Human Services grilled Miller about his views on abortion, capital punishment, and many other topics. See E. Benson, “Political science: allegations of politicization are threatening the credibility of the federal government’s scientific advisory committees,” Monitor on Psychology: Journal of the American Psychological Association, March 2003. See also K. Silverstein, “Bush’s new political science,” Mother Jones, November-December 2002.
112. This and the statements that follow come from an author interview with Claire Sterk, March. 2004.
113. As quoted in Zitner, A. 2002. “Advisors Put Under a Microscope,” The Los Angeles Times. Dec 23.

Cases: National Security
Evidence on Iraq’s Aluminum Tubes Misrepresented

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

The George W. Bush administration’s use of faulty intelligence in making its case for war against Iraq drew much attention from the media. One particular case shows that the administration knowingly disregarded scientific analysis of intelligence data that contradicted its case.

In the weeks leading up to the war, senior administration officials repeatedly stated that Iraq had attempted to acquire more than 100,000 high strength aluminum tubes for gas centrifuges to be used for enriching uranium. Highly enriched uranium is one of the two materials that can be used to make nuclear weapons.

This claim was made by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, and finally by President Bush on September 12, 2002, in his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The president repeated this claim on several occasions, including his State of the Union address to Congress in January 2003. The contention was also featured in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.⁶⁵

The question before the intelligence community was whether these tubes, which in fact never reached Iraq because of a successful U.S. intervention, were meant to be used for centrifuges or for another purpose: motor casings for short-range rockets. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advocated the view that the tubes were intended for centrifuges, and argued that the tight tolerances on the tubes’ dimensions and finish could have no other interpretation.

However, a set of technical experts from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge, Livermore, and Los Alamos National Laboratories reviewed the CIA analysis and disagreed with this interpretation because the tube dimensions were far from ideal for this purpose. In fact, the dimensions and the aluminum alloy were identical to those of tubes acquired for rockets by Iraq in the 1980s. Furthermore, the Iraqis had developed and tested centrifuges before the first Gulf War that were much more capable than those that could have been built with the imported tubes.

The DOE experts also pointed out that if these tubes were actually intended for centrifuges, there should be evidence of attempts by the Iraqis to acquire hundreds of thousands of other very specific components, but no such evidence existed. This critique of the CIA interpretation was seconded by the State Department’s intelligence branch and, independently, by an international group of centrifuge experts advising the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).⁶⁶

The claim that the aluminum tubes were intended for the manufacture of uranium for nuclear weapons was central to Secretary Powell’s case to the UN that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. He had been briefed by the IAEA about its disagreement with the CIA analysis, and was aware of a controversy inside the U.S. government about the administration’s claim because the DOE and State Department had both commented on the draft of his speech, which even mentioned that there was disagreement among experts.

However, Powell’s speech dismissed this disagreement by lumping the U.S. experts with the Iraqis: “Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.”⁶⁷ Many experts, especially at the DOE, felt “that was really a slap in the face . . . my friends in DOE felt shocked . . . we were thrown in the same camp as the Iraqis.”⁶⁸

As Dr. David Albright, a weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC, has noted, “It bespeaks something seriously wrong that a proper technical adjudication of this matter was never conducted. There was certainly plenty of time to accomplish it.” ⁶⁹

65. D. Albright, “Iraq’s Aluminum Tubes: Separating Fact from Fiction,” December 5, 2003. Online at www.isis-online.org; B. Gellman, “Search in Iraq Fails to Find a Nuclear Threat,” Washington Post, October 26, 2003; J. Cirincione, J. Mathews, and G. Perkovich, “WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004. Online at wmd.ceip.matrixgroup.net/iraq3fulltext.pdf.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Four Corners, Australian Broadcasting Corp., October 27, 2003. Online at www.abc.net.au.
69. Author interview with David Albright, January 2004.

Cases: Additional Topics
OMB Proposed Changes to "Peer Review"

This page is an excerpt from the 2004 UCS report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking.

There is concern about government-wide rule changes proposed by the White House or Congress that would alter the way the federal government gathers and reviews scientific and technical information. Such a rule change has recently been proposed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and, if adopted, promises to have dramatic effects on the promulgation of new government regulations.

The proposed rule would give the OMB centralized control of the review of scientific information relied upon in policy making at federal agencies, even though the OMB fails to identify any inherent flaws in the review processes now being used at these agencies.

The proposed rule would prohibit most scientists who receive funding from a government agency from serving as peer reviewers, but would permit scientists employed or funded by industry to serve as reviewers (unless they had a direct financial interest in the issue under review). These provisions would create a serious imbalance in the selection of peer reviewers, giving regulated industries much greater influence over the formulation of new regulations.

Both individual scientists and scientific associations have expressed concerns that this would lead to increased costs and delays in promulgating new health, safety, and environmental regulations. According to Dr. Anthony Robbins, professor of public health at Tufts University School of Medicine, co-editor of the Journal of Public Health Policy, and former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the OMB’s proposed rule change “would radically restrict access to scientific advice at the government agencies on whom we rely to protect public health. The White House could restrict open discussion and tilt the balance of residual discussions towards commercial interests. In the hands of the Bush administration,” Robbins warns, “these could be the tools that could ultimately destroy integrity in science as we know it.”⁸⁸

88. Author interview with Anthony Robbins,October 2003.
89. NAS comments online at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2003ig/ig_list.html.
90. PhRMA comments online at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2003ig/118.pdf.