3. Culture clash: Science vs. politics

3. Culture clash: Science vs. politics

Political mucking?
Politics and science have always rubbed elbows, and not always in a friendly manner, as Galileo would tell you if he weren't permanently off the record.

But the complaints about political manipulation of science have reached a new high. A Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report, "Scientific Integrity in Policy Making," includes allegations of "misuse of science."

Ignoring scientific study of the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining,

censorship and distortions of scientific analysis about the Endangered Species Act, and

"use of political litmus tests for scientific advisory panels appointments."

The UCS report covered a May, 2004 decision on emergency contraception by Steven Galson, acting director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Galson overruled two FDA committees to prevent over-the-counter sales of Plan B, a hormone pill that can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Preventive prevented
Plan B is sold without prescription in 33 countries, the UCS reported, and has been available by prescription in the United States since 1999. Seventy professional societies, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Society, had endorsed over-the-counter sales as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion.

Nonetheless, Galson wrote Barr Pharmaceuticals, Plan B's maker, saying it had not provided enough evidence that Plan B was safe for teenagers. James Trussell, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, who was on one of the two committees that recommended that the drug be sold over-the-counter, said that after reviewing thousands of pages of medical literature, "Our committee had absolutely no concern about the use of this drug by young girls." Galson's contention, he told the UCS, was "utter nonsense."

The decision was unusual, according to the New York Times. "In interviews yesterday, several former F.D.A. officials said that they could not remember another instance in which Dr. Galson, a career officer in the public health service, or any of his predecessors had overruled both an advisory committee and staff recommendations" (see "Morning-After-Pill Ruling..." in the bibliography).

We wanted to ask the FDA about the possible role of politics in the decision, but after a long game of phone-tag, we gave up.

Does the Bush Administration have a "litmus test" for scientific advisory appointments?

Is silence healthy?
UCS also warned that the Bush Administration has muzzled scientists. Staff at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, must now get permission to visit World Bank headquarters, says Kurt Gottfried, a professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University who chairs the UCS board. "There's no question there is an unprecedented pattern of behavior that many of us were familiar with in the Soviet Union. I'm not saying they would throw you into Siberia. But now at the NIH, if you want go to World Bank headquarters, it's a subway ride, but you have to get permission. ... That's typical of Russian behavior."

Granted, politicians have long tried to muck around with science. Pres. Richard Nixon once tried to squelch research funding at the giant Massachusetts Institute of Technology to retaliate against MIT president Jerome Wiesner, who opposed missile defense. But, says Gottfried, "What is new and very different is that it covers so many departments, on so many issues, and that's really unprecedented, and that is why so many scientists have signed on to our statement. From astronomy to neurology, there are scientists who are alarmed by what's going on, and not just by the individual cases, but by the widespread breach of the scientific ethic." The UCS statement decrying the politicization of science has been signed by more than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel laureates.

We wanted to ask presidential science advisor John Marburger about the other allegations, but he was busy.

His press staff did, however, refer us here.

Is politics interfering with science? Or is science inevitably political?

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