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
