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October
2002
Whose Science
Is It, Anyway?
The federal government spends tens of billions
of dollars a year on health research and has convened more than
250 committees of volunteer experts to advise on how to make the
best use of taxpayer dollars in this most public of enterprises.
Yet recent action by the Bush administration evokes
the question, "Whose science is it, anyway?"
Traditionally, taxpayers have gladly supported
a huge investment in the health research enterprise with the expectation
that it would result in improved health. They expect government
to protect the public from medical charlatans, environmental toxins
and business practices that harm people's health.
However, the Department of Health and Human Services
is engaged in a wholesale shake-up of many scientific advisory committees,
particularly those convened to address public health, patient rights
and environmental protection. These committees make recommendations
to the secretary on a host of issues that he cannot possibly have
the time or knowledge to study himself. Occasionally, they conclude
that the federal government ought to regulate some things, such
as questionable DNA tests, chemical pollution or protocols for experimentation
on human subjects.
Membership on these committees is term-limited,
and turnover is expected when there is a change in administration.
However, the changes under way by HHS would replace a corps of distinguished
science advisers with minions of private industry and acolytes of
the "religious right." One such change, for example, would
place on a key environmental advisory panel a defender of the utility
company beaten by Erin Brockovich.
One might now conclude that the role of the government
is to subsidize private industry by releasing it from the burden
of regulation that favors health and safety protection over corporate
profits. And this is only the latest cause for alarm in the scientific
community.
Earlier this year, HHS imposed a choke-hold on
the release of information to the public by NIH and CDC, requiring
that answers to all public and media inquiries be vetted by the
scientifically uncredentialed political agents of the secretary.
Now it is removing independent voices from the panels that advise
him of where science should be heading. Can it be long before applications
for research grants are subjected to a review process in which the
evaluators are not scientists but corporate shills and political
bullies?
The government
may want to get out of the business of using the knowledge generated
by its investment in research to protect and improve the health
of its citizens and let the marketplace determine what is safe and
effective. But it should at least say so and let the taxpayers who
fund federal research know the risks.
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