[Pharmwaste] New publishing rules restrict scientists

[Tenace, Laurie]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Bush_Scientists.html


New publishing rules restrict scientists

By JOHN HEILPRIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the
U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research
that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency
scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The
rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor
reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated
Press.

Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only
standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and
give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff.

"This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our
science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of
communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What it was
designed to do is to improve our product flow."

Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political
interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be compromised.

"I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every damn
thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing. I worry that it borders on
censorship," said Jim Estes, an internationally recognized marine biologist
in the USGS field station at Santa Cruz, Calif.



"The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest possible
quality research," said Estes, a researcher at the agency for more than 30
years. "But to me it feels like they're doing this to keep us under their
thumbs. It seems like they're afraid of science. Our findings could be
embarrassing to the administration."

The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be
"alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or
topics of a policy-sensitive nature."

The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be
told - prior to any submission for publication - "of findings or data that
may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or
contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are
notified and that communication strategies are developed."

Patrick Leahy, USGS's head of geology and its acting director until
September, said Wednesday that the new procedures would improve scientists'
accountability and "harmonize" the review process. He said they are intended
to maintain scientists' neutrality.

"Our scientific staff is second to none," he said. "This notion of scientific
gotcha is something we do not want to participate in. That does not mean to
avoid contentious issues."

The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for all
scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer reviews. In
that process, scientists critique each other's findings to determine whether
they deserve to be published.

>From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside peer
reviewers' as well any exchanges between the scientists who are seeking to
publish their findings and the reviewers.

The Bush administration, as well as the Clinton administration before it, has
been criticized over scientific integrity issues. In 2002, the USGS was
forced to reverse course after warning that oil and gas drilling in Alaska's
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm the Porcupine caribou herd. One
week later a new report followed, this time saying the caribou would not be
affected.

Earlier this year, a USGS scientist poked holes in research that the Interior
Department was using in an effort to remove from the endangered species list
a tiny jumping mouse that inhabits grasslands coveted by developers in
Colorado and Wyoming.

Federal criminal investigators are looking into allegations that USGS
employees falsified documents between 1998 and 2000 on the the movement of
water through the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The
USGS had validated the Energy Department's conclusions that water seepage was
relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape.

At the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists and advocacy groups alike
are worried about closing libraries that contain tens of thousands of agency
documents and research studies. "It now appears that EPA officials are
dismantling what it likely one of our country's comprehensive and accessible
collections of environmental materials," four Democrats who are in line to
head House committees wrote EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson two weeks ago.

Democrats about to take control of Congress have investigations into reports
by The New York Times and other news organizations that the Bush
administration tried to censor government scientists researching global
warming at NASA and the Commerce Department.

Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us  
 
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