
With the State of the Union coming up, I’ve been wondering whether, or how, President Obama might address the Plan B fiasco I blogged about here. After all, Obama has addressed science issues in his previous State of the Union addresses. And, in his inaugural address, he pledged to “restore science to its rightful place.” More importantly, he entered office promising the most transparent administration in history and vowing that, unlike previous administrations, he and his appointees would “not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions” for political gain. But those promises were forgotten or ignored as soon as they were made.
From Obama’s March 2009 decision to fund only politically favorable types of human embryo research to his administration’s Plan B birth control decision last month, he has shown that he is every bit as willing to politicize science when it’s expedient as earlier presidents have been. The highly politicized December 7 decision by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to over-ride a decision by Food and Drug Administration scientists to approve the Plan B emergency contraceptive for over-the-counter use has gotten plenty of attention. But for science policy experts, that case of politicized science came as no surprise given the administration’s willingness to subvert the advice of scientific experts on any number of critical issues.
Just to give a couple of examples: White House Energy Czar Carol Browner improperly altered a scientific report on oil spill remediation in order to support a ban on off-shore drilling. Then there was the administration’s rejection of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste depository as Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientists accused senior administration officials of politicizing their work. And there are scores of other cases — ranging from the significant to the petty — in which the Obama Administration has chosen to subvert scientific integrity for political gain.





