From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 23:47:20 MST
Interesting the stuff that the editors of the leading science journals
deem worthy of discussion sometimes.
I caught this one in the Jan 31 edition of Science.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/299/5607/625
An Epidemic of Politics
Donald Kennedy
"Americans have come to accept the role of politics in the
appointment of certain kinds of public officials. Few of us
are surprised, though some may be disappointed, when a
federal judgeship is awarded because the candidate passes
a litmus test of loyalty to some principle important to the
president's party. Scientific appointments, however, should
rest on more objective criteria of training, ability, and
performance--at least, that's what this community has always
believed. Thus we can view with relative calm the interrogation
of a future secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)
about his views on abortion. But it seems out of place when
appointees to scientific advisory committees are subjected
to tests of political loyalty. And study section membership,
which involves peer review of scientific proposals, surely
ought to be free of such barriers to entry.
During the past fall, Science published several news stories
related to this practice. One involved the wholesale
replacement of members of the advisory committee to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's)
National Center for Environmental Health, without
consultation with the center's director. Another involved
CDC's Advisory Committee on Lead Poisoning and
Prevention. Still another covered the National Human
Research Protections Advisory Committee and the Advisory
Committee on Genetic Testing. Perhaps most telling was
the revamping of the membership of the study section that
evaluates grants for the study of workplace injuries for the
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
Advisory committees might have been vulnerable to
occasional stacking of this kind in the past, though it is
a bad idea. But study sections?
The present epidemic, in which advisory committees are
shut down and reassembled with new members, and
candidates are subjected to loyalty tests, seems old hat
to some observers. "After all, that's fairly standard practice,"
we have been told by officials in HHS. Well, it isn't--or
at least it wasn't. What's unusual about the current
epidemic is not that the Bush administration examines
candidates for compatibility with its "values." It's how
deep the practice cuts; in particular, the way it now
invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation.
In this space in the 25 October 2002 issue, Science
published an editorial by David Michaels and a group
of colleagues. Several were distinguished former public
servants who had been involved with some of the
committees in question, and they brought a useful
personal-experience perspective to the matter. Their piece
was a story in itself, but what followed was even more
interesting. It loosed a volley of letters to us in which
scientists told of similar experiences. Here are two examples:
A nominee for the National Institutes of Health Muscular
Dystrophy Research Coordinating Committee is vetted
by a staffer from the Office of White House Liaison,
Health and Human Services. After being asked about her
views on various Bush administration policies, none of them
related to the work of the committee, she is asked whether
she supports the president's embryonic stem cell policy.
A distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology
receives a call from the White House about his nomination
to serve on the National Council on Drug Abuse. His
interviewer declares that he must vet him to "determine
whether he held any views that might be embarrassing to
the president." A series of questions follows, into which
the interviewer interpolates a running score, viz.: "You're
two for three; the president opposes needle exchange on
moral grounds regardless of the outcome." He then asks
whether the candidate had voted for Bush, and on being
informed that he had not, asked: "Why didn't you support
the president?"
This stuff would be prime material for a Robin Williams
comedy shtick, but it really isn't funny. The purpose of
advisory committees is to provide balanced, thoughtful
advice to the policy process; it is better not to put the
policy up front. As for study sections, deciding which
research projects to support has always been a matter
for objective peer review. Political preferences are for
the pork barrel, and the Congress is already doing too
much of that. Indeed, the applicable statute for all this--
the Federal Advisory Committee Act--specifically requires
that committees be balanced and "not inappropriately
influenced by the appointing authority." It would be a
good idea for HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and the
White House Personnel Office to read the law, and then
follow it."
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