Scientists in the United States have raised their concerns that President Bush's government has been distorting scientific findings that run counter to its own political beliefs.
The role of politics in the formulation of Bush administration science policy was criticised in two independent reports released yesterday by prominent scientific groups.
A statement released by 60 leading scientists and former federal agency heads accused the Bush administration of systematically suppressing and distorting scientific information to further its political goals.
The statement's signers - and an accompanying report compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a Washington-based advocacy group - claim that politicisation of science by the administration has seriously undermined the integrity of the nation's research enterprise and has misled the public about the implications of recent policy decisions.
UCS chairman Dr. Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University, said: "Whether the issue is lead paint, clean air or climate change, this behavior has serious consequences for all Americans."
The statement - whose signatories include 12 Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, calls for Congressional hearings to look into the issue and a renewed administration commitment to public access to objective scientific information.
In a hastily called telephone news conference yesterday, John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, addressed the claims made by the Nobelists and other scientists and sought to minimize the document as being more political than scientific.
The United States was widely criticised for refusing to back the 1997 Kyoto protocol, a global plan for slowing global warming by reducing so-called greenhouse emissions. It stalled after President George W. Bush pulled out the United States, the world's biggest polluter, in 2001.
Agencies