Dear Editor:
Recently, the Bush White House and the FDA announced that it
would not allow a contraceptive to be sold over-the-counter,
overruling a lopsided decision by an independent expert FDA review
board made up by a number of people appointed by the
administration.
Dear Editor:
Recently, the Bush White House and the FDA announced that it would not allow a contraceptive to be sold over-the-counter, overruling a lopsided decision by an independent expert FDA review board made up by a number of people appointed by the administration. This decision is just the latest example of the Bush White House misusing science for political gain, putting its own interests ahead of sound public health policies.
This administration has misled us about the Health Risks of mercury. They suppressed evidence about safe levels of mercury emissions and lead. Mercury and lead contamination are linked to neurological and development impairment in children.
They have censored scientific reports. In late February, more than 60 influential scientists, including more than 20 Nobel laureates, signed a statement saying the administration had disbanded scientific advisory committees, placed unqualified people on other panels and censored reports by others when their scientific conclusions conflicted with administration policies.
When the scientists don’t agree with the Bush approach to playing politics with science, the administration replaces them. Two preeminent scientists on the Council on Bio-Ethics who disagreed with the administration’s political opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, were replaced.
The Bush administration removed all references to safe sex information from government Web sites. Web sites for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control removed fact sheets on the “effectiveness of condoms” and a sex education program curriculum called “Programs that Work” which focused on HIV and highlighted several proven programs that involve condom use.
President Bush and the EPA know that the air over New York City after 09/11 was dangerous, but told the public it was safe. According to the EPA Inspector General, after September 11 the White House did not want an EPA official to make the health risks of the polluted air public. On September 13, 2001, then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman announced that the air in New York was safe to breathe, despite warnings from scientists that the air was, “the most polluted the world has ever experienced.”
This most recent announcement from the FDA that the “morning after” contraceptive pill will not be sold over the counter is the latest example of the Bush Administration’s assault on science for the advancements of its ultra-conservative agenda. The San Francisco Chronicle (3/21/04) accurately concluded, “When politics trumps science, no one wins: The Bush administration, already burdened by a growing credibility gap, squanders even greater public trust; scientists waste precious time fighting political battles; and we, the nations’ citizens, lose expert advice on how to protect our health and that of the environment.”
Matthew Gerst, Gilroy
Submitted Saturday, May 8 to ed****@************ch.com
