A US government report on a pressing
environmental issue is edited to falsely imply that
scientists had peer-reviewed and supported the central
policy recommendation. Almost 1 in 4 government scientists
working on food safety say they have been asked by their
bosses to exclude or alter technical information in
scientific documents during the past year.
These incidents sound as if they come from
the dark days of George W. Bush's presidency, when
complaints about political interference in government
science reached a crescendo. But in fact, both refer to the
behaviour of the current US administration, led by a
president who famously promised to "restore
science to its rightful place" in his inauguration
speech of January 2009.
Two months later, a presidential
memo seemed to seal the deal: "The public must be able
to trust the science and scientific process informing public
policy decisions," Obama stated. Scientific information used
by the federal government in making policy should be
published, he added, and political officials should not
suppress or alter scientific findings. John
Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy, was given 120 days to draft a new
policy on scientific integrity in government.
We're still waiting for that policy to see
the light of day. The precise reasons for the lengthy delay
remain unclear – the watchdog group Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility has even sued
the government under the Freedom of Information Act,
in an attempt to obtain documents that may explain the
impasse. But it seems likely that the sticking point has
been resistance from government officials who just don't
like the accountability that the new policy is supposed to
usher in.
The latest whispers indicate that the policy
should appear this month. When it does, scientists must
scrutinise it carefully. One of the key things to look out
for is a stipulation that the science on which policy
decisions are based is made public. If any wriggle room on
that point is allowed, it will be impossible in future to
prevent abuses like the infamous interference of Julie
MacDonald, a senior official in the Bush administration's
Fish and Wildlife Service, who routinely
edited scientific documents to influence decisions
about listings under the Endangered Species Act.
By comparison, last month's revelation
on Politico.com that Obama's White House falsely
implied that its six-month moratorium on offshore oil
drilling, introduced during the Deepwater Horizon spill, had
the backing of scientific peer review seems like a
relatively minor offence. Reading the official
report into the allegation, there is no smoking gun to
disprove the administration's claim that the offending
language was merely the result of sloppy editing, with no
intent to deceive.
But there is no room for complacency. Francesca
Grifo, who heads the Scientific Integrity Program at
the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), says that her phone
is no longer ringing off the hook like it did during the
worst excesses of the Bush administration. But government
scientists who are worried about political interference in
their work still call Grifo for advice – and the latest
survey from the UCS makes disturbing reading.
In March, the UCS sent a questionnaire to
scientists involved in food safety at the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) and the US Department of Agriculture.
Of those who replied, 23 per cent said that they had been
asked to "inappropriately exclude or alter technical
information" from agency scientific documents within the
previous year.
The survey offers little evidence that
things have improved much under Obama. At the FDA's Center
for Food Safety and Nutrition, they may even have got worse.
In 2006, during Bush's second term, a similar UCS survey
found that 10 per cent of its scientists they had been asked
to inappropriately exclude or alter information in the
previous year; the 2010 figure was 16 per cent.
Government scientists also remain nervous
about speaking out in public, or to the media, for fear of
annoying their superiors. Open discourse is central to
scientific progress – which is why clear guidance to
government scientists freeing them to express their opinions
on scientific matters should be another cornerstone of the
delayed policy on scientific integrity.
Helpfully, the UCS had drafted a model
media policy for government agencies. It stresses both
that scientists have a fundamental right to express their
personal views, provided it is made clear that they are not
representing an agency position, and also that they have the
right to review and approve any publication that
significantly relies on their research.
While some other constituencies are
deserting him, Obama largely still has the support of the
scientific community. He is seen as a friend of science, who
with his allies in Congress ensured that a generous dollop
of stimulus
spending was devoted to research.
But scientists mustn't allow their fondness
for this President to constrain their criticism of his
administration, if it is justified. The long delay in the
scientific integrity policy is worrying, and when it finally
appears it must be scrutinised in detail, and criticised
loudly if it fails to deliver the goods.
Obama may be a friend of science, but many
of the functionaries in his administration are rather less
friendly. And if he fails to institute a sea change on the
crucial issue of scientific integrity in government, there
will be little to prevent a future President who sees little
value in science from taking us back to the bad old days
