Bush Pressures 46% of Scientists

[Doug]

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Congress on Tuesday stepped up its pressure on President Bush’s global warming strategy, hearing allegations of new political pressure on government scientists to downplay the threat of global warming.

Lawmakers received survey results of federal scientists that showed 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming” or similar terms from communications about their work.

The scientists also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.

The new allegations were made at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Waxman said he and the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, had sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but were repeatedly rebuffed.

"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," said Waxman, opening the hearing. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," Waxman added.

Waxman said his committee had not received documents it requested from the White House and other agencies, and that a handful of papers received on the eve of the hearing "add nothing to our inquiry."

Nearly half cited edits
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a private advocacy group, and the Government Accountability Project, a legal-assistance group that represents whistle-blowers, sent out the survey to 1,600 scientists. Surveys were returned by 308 scientists. Not all answered every question, but the survey found that:

43 percent of respondents reported edits during review of their work that changed the meaning of their findings.
46 percent felt administrative requirements that impaired climate-related work.
67 percent said the environment for federal government climate research is worse now than five years ago.


See the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The original survey sample (1600) was valid, but the actual returned surveys (308) isn't really large enough to draw conclusions - of course, it does lead to questions of WHY 1292 scientists didn't (possibly were afraid) to answer the survey. Certainly a "climate of fear" for one's job would significantly reduce the number of answerers to the survey.

[Hogeye]

Government pressures 98% of all scientists.

If that had been the headline, would anyone be surprised? I wonder if 98% is more or less correct, in the United State, considering the mass of military and other govt-funded research? It seems like there are rather few of us concerned with Neo-Lysenkoism and the perversion of science by State. Most have a quasi-religious belief and faith in State which precludes such notions.

[Doug]

See here.

Testimony that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to give yesterday to a Senate committee about the impact of climate change on health was significantly edited by the White House, according to two sources familiar with the documents.

Specific scientific references to potential health risks were removed after Julie L. Gerberding submitted a draft of her prepared remarks to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review.

Discussion PolicyDiscussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

Instead, Gerberding's prepared testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee included few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease. Only during questioning did the director of the government's premier disease-monitoring agency describe any specific diseases likely to be affected, again without elaboration.

A CDC official familiar with both versions said Gerberding's draft "was eviscerated," cut from 14 pages to four. The version presented to the Senate committee consisted of six pages.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process, said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly "heavy-handed."

[Dardedar]

More on Doug's comment above:

Full Version of White House "Edited" CDC Climate Report - with highlights!

26 Oct 07

"Edits" does not even come close to describing the grammatical massacre the White House undertook with CDC Director Julie Gerberding's Senate testimony on the public health effects of climate change.

These were not minor edits the White House PR spin machine would like us to believe. The word-count on the CDC Director's Senate testimony went from 3,107 to 1,500 after the White House got through with it.

Whole sections on health related effects to extreme weather, air pollution-related health effect, allergic diseases, water and food-borne infectious diseases, food and water scarcity and the long term impacts of chronic diseases and other health effects were completely wiped out of the testimony.

http://www.desmogblog.com/