11/12/07

Squashing science: It’s not just us

In a new report (pdf, 37 pages), America’s House Oversight Committee has suggested that the Bush White House has been massaging the science on climate change.The report’s “one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.”

Tut tut.

The weary footsoldiers of Public Health welcome climate scientists to the fold. Systematic manipulation of scientific data has become tediously familiar in our field since Bush the Younger took up residence in the White House. Public Health officials tired of it long before US Surgeon General Richard Carmona quit his job, telling the same ever-vigilant committee: “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried.” Even the usually stalwart Centers for Disease Control have given in, smudging evidence around HIV prevention, raising illegitimate doubts about condoms (which work just fine), and rubbing out legitimate doubts about abstinence programmes (which work particularly poorly).

This post was published on 11/12/07 in Ideology and HIV, Science.

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