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Re: Bush and Science
John,
Bush is a blessing to scientists. This IS a radiation safety issue.
I have, as a Board Member of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, critically
questioned experts in three of the areas listed by Waxman, (a government
expansionist). I find Bush policy generally sound science.
Radsafe IS directly concerned with these:
1, Missile Defense
A newly improved Patriot barely stopped an improved Scud from wiping out the
Quatar command center - and the general staff that then conducted a war with
the least loss of civilian life in history (especially compared with the
dire predictions of Waxman). That improvement would not likely have been
available, had the US Supreme Court allowed the Fla Supreme Court to make ex
post facto law about ballots. Boost phase missile stoppers will soon protect
us in ways the Clinton-Gore regime had blocked. That is urgent with N Korea
having NUCLEAR weapons. Teller and Lowell Wood ( LLNL developer of Brilliant
Pebbles) are among those we quizzed about missle defense at several
meetings. Bush is credible here, critics not.
2, Global Warming
Bush's Kyoto stance agrees with 17,000 scientists www.oism.org/pproject
Again, Bush is credible, critics not. With Kyoto, there would be little
money for new reactors, fewer fossile fuel generators and a lower stanrd of
living from less energy. Besides, there is more CO2 coming into the USA from
the west than going out to the east! (Europe should pay us!). With Bush, we
should expect more NUCLEAR generators started than with Gore or Hillary,
wouldn't you agree?..
3, Workplace Regulation
Repetitive injury, like obesity, is largely personal responsibility. I treat
it daily. Bush removal of some regulation just made less lawyer fodder.
Three physiotherapy offices told me last year that over 90% of their
referals involve lawyers.The cost of
that drives businesses (including NUCLEAR) out of California - until the
Terminator cleans house of politicians like Waxman.
I find Bush much closer to science than was his predecessor - or is the
misinformation you perpetuate below.
Howard Long
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Jacobus" <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>
To: "RADSAFE" <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 6:37 AM
Subject: Science and government policy
I would be remiss in not posting this article.
However, I would suggest that futher discussions
should be held off line as it is really not a
radiation safety issue.
The original can be found at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31318-2003Aug7.html
The Web site listing administration bias is at
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/.
I believe that is important to consider all side of an
issue and make up your own mind.
-----------------
Bush Misuses Science, Report Says
By Rick Weiss
The Bush administration has repeatedly
mischaracterized scientific
facts to bolster its political agenda in areas ranging
from abstinence
education and condom use to missile defense, according
to a detailed
report released yesterday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman
(D-Calif.).
The White House quickly dismissed the report as
partisan sniping.
The 40-page document, "Politics and Science in the
Bush
Administration," was compiled by the minority staff of
the House Government Reform
Committee's special investigations division. It marks
the launch of a new
effort by Waxman and others in Congress to highlight
simmering anger
among scientists and others who believe that President
Bush -- much more
than his predecessors -- has been spiking science with
politics to
justify conservative policies in areas such as
reproductive rights, embryo
research, energy policy and environmental health.
"The Administration's political interference with
science has led to
misleading statements by the President, inaccurate
responses to
Congress, altered web sites, suppressed agency
reports, erroneous international
communications, and the gagging of scientists,"
according to the
report, posted yesterday at
www.politicsandscience.org. "The subjects
involved span a broad range, but they share a common
attribute: the
beneficiaries of the scientific distortions are
important supporters of the
President, including social conservatives and powerful
industry groups."
White House spokesman Adam Levine said it would take
time for the
administration to address the specifics of the report.
However, he said,
"I'm hard-pressed to believe anyone would consider
Congressman Waxman an
objective arbiter of scientific fact."
Several prestigious scientific journals have
editorialized about the
Bush administration's dealings in science in recent
months, including
Science, Nature and the New England Journal of
Medicine.
An editor at Science, for example, recently said in
print that the
administration was injecting politics into arenas of
science "once immune
to this kind of manipulation."
And the editors of the Lancet noted "growing
evidence of explicit
vetting of appointees to influential [scientific]
panels on the basis of
their political or religious opinions" and warned
against "any further
right-wing incursions" on those panels.
The General Accounting Office has been investigating
such allegations
since some in Congress asked the agency to do so in
September, but it
has not released any findings.
Among the purported abuses documented in the report:
. "Performance measures" used to determine the
effectiveness of
federally funded "abstinence only" sex education
programs were altered by
the administration in ways that made it easier to say
the programs were
effective. And information about how to use a condom
-- along with
scientific data showing that sex education does not
lead to earlier or
increased sexual activity in young people -- was
removed from a Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention Web site.
. In testimony before Congress, Interior Secretary
Gale A. Norton
omitted -- and in at least one case misstated --
federal scientists'
findings that Arctic oil drilling could harm wildlife.
. The administration altered a National Cancer
Institute Web site in a
way that wrongly implied there was good evidence
linking abortions to
breast cancer.
. The Education Department circulated a memo
instructing employees to
remove materials from the department's Web site not
"consistent with
the Administration's philosophy," prompting complaints
about censorship
from national educational organizations.
. Bush has appointed to key scientific advisory
committees numerous
people with political, rather than scientific,
credentials. For example,
his appointee to a presidential AIDS advisory
committee, marketing
consultant Jerry Thacker, has described homosexuality
as a "deathstyle"
and referred to AIDS as the "gay plague."
A spokesman for Waxman said the report will be
updated on the Web as
new examples arise.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
-------------------
=====
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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