Bill, I recently saw that the Bush EPA has also just filed its annual report that for the first time in more than a decade has no mention, no chapter on Global Warming, just eliminated it as if it didn't exist. But these litmus tests will be just the tip of the iceberg if they gain control over Congress in November. Karen Here is something that futureworkers might find interesting Bill Ward ****************************************************** HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views
By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 17, 2002 The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices. In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One had recommended that the Food and Drug Administration expand its regulation of the increasingly lucrative genetic testing industry, which has so far been free of such oversight. The other committee, which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources. A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich. The changes are among the first in a gradual restructuring of the system that funnels expert advice to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. <...SNIP...> The committees typically toil in near anonymity, but they are important because their interpretation of scientific data can sway an agency's approach to health risk and regulation. The overhaul is rattling some HHS employees, some of whom said they have not seen such a political makeover of the department since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. <...SNIP...> One example of the recent changes is the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing, created during the Clinton administration after a major federal report concluded that the public was at risk of being harmed by the emerging gene-testing industry. One of the first topics tackled by the committee was how to deal with the proliferation of so-called home-brew genetic tests, which are offered by a growing number of companies and doctors. The blood tests can detect DNA variations that may increase a person's odds of getting a disease or affect a patient's response to medicines. The Food and Drug Administration has long asserted that it has the authority to regulate these tests, but it has opted not to do so -- in part because of a lack of resources. As a result, companies are free to market tests for genes even if those genes have no proven role in disease susceptibility or any proven usefulness at all. A growing number of companies are doing just that -- at no small expense to consumers -- in some cases needlessly alarming people with meaningless results and in other cases offering false reassurance. <...SNIP...> HERE'S WHERE THE PLOT THICKENS FOR MANY, THIS LIST! Another example is the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee, created under President Bill Clinton after a series of government reports found serious deficiencies in the federal system for protecting human subjects in research. The call from HHS to disband "came out of the blue," said committee chair Mary Faith Marshall, a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Kansas in Kansas City. Some sources suggested the committee had angered the pharmaceutical industry or other research enterprises because of its recommendations to tighten up conflict-of-interest rules and impose new restrictions on research involving the mentally ill. "It's very frustrating," said Paul Gelsinger, who became a member of the committee after his son, Jesse, died in a Pennsylvania gene therapy experiment that was later found to have broken basic safety rules. "It's always been my view that money is running the research show," he said. "So with this administration's ties to industry, I'm not surprised" to see the committee killed. YET, ANOTHER SERIOUS HACK ATTACK AND *BUSHWHACK*... Yet another committee caught up in the recent upheaval is one that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health on a range of public health issues from pollution to bioterrorism. Thomas Burke, the Johns Hopkins public health professor who has chaired the committee for almost five years, recently learned that 15 of its 18 members are to be replaced. In the past, he said, HHS had asked him to recommend new members when there were openings. This time, he said, a list of names was imposed. He was among those who were let go. Burke said he was not offended that his own membership, which was expiring, was not renewed. "There's constant turnover on these boards," he said. "What's of concern though is to see so much turnover at one time, especially at such a critical time for the CDC." He mentioned another concern: One of the committee's major endeavors has been to assess the health effects of low-level exposures to environmental chemicals, yet as first reported by Science magazine last week, several of the new appointees are well known for their connections to the chemical industry. HHS's Pierce said the committee remains balanced overall, and no prospective member of any advisory committee is subjected to political screenings. "It's always a matter of qualifications first and foremost," Pierce said. "There's no quotas on any of this stuff. There's no litmus test of any kind." At least one nationally renowned academic, who was recently called by an administration official to talk about serving on an HHS advisory committee, disagreed with that assessment. To the candidate's surprise, the official asked for the professor's views on embryo cell research, cloning and physician-assisted suicide. After that, the candidate said, the interviewer told the candidate that the position would have to go to someone else because the candidate's views did not match those of the administration. Asked to reconcile that experience with his previous assurance, Pierce said of the interview questions: "Those are not litmus tests."
