A report issued this month accuses the Bush administration of distorting and ignoring scientific studies that goes against conservative viewpoints and appointing panel members to scientific boards based on ideology. The report, “Politics and Science in the Bush Administration,” was released by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and conducted by the minority staff of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform.
The report states that “the Administration’s political interference with science has led to misleading statements by the President, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered websites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications, and the gagging of scientists.”
The report looks at over twenty scientific issues affected by the undermining of science, including abstinence education, condom use, breast cancer, and reproductive health. For example, the report notes that, in line with right-wing, anti-abortion attempts to falsely associate abortion with breast cancer as a health scare tactic, the Bush Administration revised an online fact sheet suggesting that there is in fact a link. It took a three-day conference with expert after expert testifying that there was no increased risk of breast cancer among women who have had abortions to get the fact sheet changed to reflect science, not ideology.
LEARN MORE Read the Ms. Magazine coverage of the Bush Administration’s “Weird Science”
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