More on Science versus Bush from the WashingtonPost-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13606-2004Feb27.html?referrer=email

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Nachtsheim <stephen () nachtsheim com>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 07:31:33 
To:"Net Dave@Farber." <dave () farber net>
Subject: More on Science versus Bush from the Washington
 Post-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13606-2004Feb27.html?referrer=email

                                                          washingtonpost.com > -->> Politics -->> Politics > Bush       
      Administration                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                        
                                                                         Bush Ejects Two From                         
Bioethics Council                         
Changes Renew                         Criticism That the President Puts Politics Ahead of                         
Science                         
By Rick                         Weiss
Wash
Saturday,                         February 28, 2004; Page A06                         
                         
President Bush yesterday dismissed two members                         of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a 
scientist                         and a moral philosopher who had been among the more                         outspoken 
advocates for research on human embryo                         cells. 
                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                        
                                                 
In their places he appointed three new members,                         including a doctor who has called for more 
religion in                         public life, a political scientist who has spoken out                         
precisely against the research that the dismissed                         members supported, and another who has 
written about the                         immorality of abortion and the "threats of                         
biotechnology." 
                         
The turnover immediately renewed a recent                         string of accusations by scientists and others that 
Bush                         is increasingly allowing politics to trump science as he                         seeks 
advice on ethically contentious issues. 
                         
Last week, a Washington-based interest group                         released a report detailing what it called many 
examples                         of the administration distorting the scientific process                         to 
achieve desired policy answers relating to pollution,                         embryo research and other topics. Some in 
Congress, led                         by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), have also been                         
getting vocal on the topic, as have academics,                         scientific organizations and science journal 
editors.                         
                         
One of the dismissed members, Elizabeth                         Blackburn, is a renowned biologist at the University of 
                        California at San Francisco. She said she received a                         call yesterday 
morning from someone in the White House                         personnel office. 
                         
"He said the White House had decided to make                         some changes on the council. He wanted to express 
his                         gratitude and said I'd no longer be on the council,"                         Blackburn 
said. 
                         
She said she had no warning and had not heard                         from the council's director, University of 
Chicago                         ethicist Leon Kass. She said she believed she was let go                         
because her political views do not match those of the                         president and of Kass, with whom she has 
often been at                         odds at council meetings. 
                         
"I think this is Bush stacking the council with                         the compliant," Blackburn said. 
                         
The other dismissed member, William May, an                         emeritus professor of ethics at Southern Methodist  
                       University, is a highly respected scholar whose views on                         embryo research 
and other topics had also run counter to                         those of conservative council members. Efforts to 
reach                         him last night were unsuccessful. 
                         
Asked why Blackburn and May had been let go,                         White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said the two 
members'                         terms had expired in January, and they were on "holdover                         
status." Asked whether, in fact, all the council                         members' terms had formally expired in 
January, she said                         they had. 
                         
Pressed on why Blackburn and May had been                         singled out for dismissal, she said: "We've decided 
to                         go ahead and appoint other individuals with different                         expertise and 
experience." She would not elaborate                         further. 
                         
Kass, who has written prolifically about                         biotechnology's toll on human dignity and was selected 
                        by Bush to head the council, was traveling yesterday and                         could not be 
reached. 
                         
Bush created the council by executive order in                         2001 to "advise the President on bioethical 
issues that                         may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedical                         
science and technology." He recently renewed its                         commission for another two years. 
                         
The group of scholars, scientists, theologians                         and others has produced several reports, 
including ones                         on human cloning, stem cell research and the use of                         
biotechnology to enhance human beings. But the council                         has often found it difficult to reach 
consensus on                         issues. 
                         
The three new appointees are Benjamin Carson,                         the high-profile director of pediatric 
neurosurgery at                         Johns Hopkins University; Diana Schaub, chairman of the                         
department of political science at Loyola College in                         Maryland; and Peter Lawler, a professor of 
government at                         Berry College in Georgia. All are respected members of                         
their fields. And their writings suggest their tenures                         will be less contentious than their      
                   predecessors'. 
                         
When not performing some of the most difficult                         surgeries in the world, Carson is a motivational 
speaker                         who often invokes religion and the Bible and has                         lamented that 
"we live in a nation where we can't talk                         about God in public." 
                         
Schaub has effusively praised Kass and his                         work. In a 2002 public forum discussing the 
council's                         cloning report, she talked about research in which                         embryos 
are destroyed as "the evil of the willful                         destruction of innocent human life." 
                         
In a book review in the conservative Weekly                         Standard in late 2002, Lawler warned that if the 
United                         States does not soon "become clear as a nation that                         abortion is 
wrong," then women will eventually be                         compelled to abort genetically defective babies.          
               
                         
Michael Gazzaniga, a Dartmouth neuroscientist                         who sits on the council, said he was "upset" by   
                      Blackburn's ejection. 
                         
"She was one of the basic scientists who                         understood the biology of many of the issues we're     
                    talking about," Gazzaniga said. "It will be a loss for                         sure." 
                         
Research editor Margot Williams contributed                         to this             report

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