Today's Washington Post reports that political appointees in the Bush Administration blocked the publication of a 2006 Surgeon General's report on global health. As the Post reports, in recent Congressional testimony Carmona cited the report's "suppression as an example of the Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist." This episode is part of a broader narrative that the Bush Administration systematically distorts and politicizes science for ideological reasons. The problem is that the facts of this episode do not support Carmona's charge nor the larger narrative.
The draft report at issue here was not a purely scientific or medical document — not even close. The report, The Surgeon's General Call to Action on Global Health, is as much a policy document as anything else, complete with specific policy recommendations on a range of issues. Among other things, the report calls for ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and the acceptance of certain international health regulations. Whether or not these are sensible health policy prescriptions or not, they reflect normative value judgments, not scientific judgments.
My point here is not to defend the Bush Administration, nor is it to suggest that the report should have been withheld. Rather it is that many cases of "science politicization" are in fact policy disputes. The Post's subhead reads "Global Health Draft In 2006 Rejected for Not Being Political," yet the report itself was an inherently political document. The dispute between Carmona and Bush officials was about the extent to which a policy report should reflect, endorse, or promote Bush Administration policy. It was not an instance of politics or ideology trumping science. If the Administration is to be criticized for blocking the release of The Surgeon's General Call to Action on Global Health, it should be criticized on policy grounds — for opposing particular public health measures and refusing to support others — rather than for allegedly censoring scientific expertise.
UPDATE: Here is a good example of how this story is (wrongly) placed in the traditional narrative of science politicization. Contrary to Mark Hoofnagle's claim, this episode has little to do with "scientific integrity." Nonetheless, he terms it "despicable."
Related Posts (on one page):
- Bush Appointees Blocked Health Report Release:
- Richard Carmona's Political Science:
- Did White House Censor Surgeons General?
I'm not saying that this is the case in this instance. I haven't read the report. However, absolute fealty should not be requirement for political appointment.
Boy, has that become a familiar refrain on this blog.
Anyway, the guy quoted in the article who is defending the Bush administration and who is suggesting the report should have been withheld justifies the suppression on purely scientific grounds:
The report was a hybrid scientific/policy document, and the scientifically untrained, political appointee who suppressed it is attacking the science of the report, not the policy. I think JHA might be slicing things too thin in his efforts to not defend the Bush administration.
I agree that both the Bush Administration and Carmona have unjustifiably sought to justify their positions and actions by appealing to scientific authority. I also believe that both are wrong to do so. I further think it fair to accuse the Bush official of dissembling on this point as the e-mails quoted in the story make clear that the appointee's objections to the report were political, not scientific, in nature.
JHA
(Cristina Beato, to whom Carmona reported, falsified her CV. She should have been swiftly fired, but she was a loyal Bushie, so stayed.)
How many think the current Administation hasn't been less heedful of "inconvenient" science, if not frankly hostile to such, than any of its predecessors? Why not call someone like Steiger what they really are, which is "political commissars"?
What is one to do, as a good natured, paper-shuffling bureaucrat, when confronted with a scientific report that truly suffers from "sloppy work, poor analysis, and lack of scientific rigor...."?
The point is that the good natured bureaucrat has absolutely no basis on which to judge these things. He is a bureaucrat, not a scientist. What expertise does he possess to determine this? None. Is he there to judge on scientific criteria? No. He is there solely to make a determination on political grounds.
Of course it is. Please be honest enough to stop pretending otherwise.
The White House has defended the repression of the report on non-political grounds. Irrespective of their actual motive, I think they would have been on better grounds to have argued their motive was acceptable political grounds. So, if I were defending the White House, I could make an argument that would make this all go away. Thus, this should all go away - not that I'm defending the White House, mind you.
I accept the first two sentences of your synopsis. I am not convinced that this story would, or should, go away if it were properly framed. I doubt it would make the front page of the Washington Post, but it might still be a controversial decision. The big difference is that the public debate would focus on the actual relevant policy questions.
The larger point is that this episode is quite different from the Julie MacDonald-ESA listings episode (see, e.g. here), in which it appears there was political interference with scientific determinations.
JHA
I am not sure, but I suspect Howard Dean as Surgeon General would be a different sort than Bill Frist, and both would be different from Ron Paul--all of whom are medical doctors.
If you were serious about wanting to discuss the actual policy issues, wouldn't the more obvious way to go about doing that be - posting on the actual policy issues?
"The point is that the good natured bureaucrat has absolutely no basis on which to judge these things. He is a bureaucrat, not a scientist. What expertise does he possess to determine this? None. Is he there to judge on scientific criteria? No. He is there solely to make a determination on political grounds."
Well, this is absolutely false. Surely, the good natured bureaucrat, like all other members of the general public, is perfectly capable of determining to some degree whether a scientific conclusion is supported by the scientist's data. Small data sets, conclusions that a consistent result occurred despite underlying data showing that inconsistent results occurred, the reliance on several assumptions of fact without explanation or justification and the existence of contradictory data that receives no treatment or explanation by the scientist are issues that can be easily identified by any 10th grader. The notion that non-scientists should or must accept anything and everything that a scientist says is patently absurd. The scientists have the burden of convincing the policy makers (be they bureaucrats or voters) that their research is accurate and meaningful. Otherwise, taking Mr. Satterfield's beliefs seriously, we need to dump our representative democracy and simply acquiesce to be governed by the scientists (assuming they all agree on what needs to be done).
By "dissembling" you mean "lying?"
The bureaucrat may not be a scientist, but one does not have to be a scientist to recognize policy recommendations. Policy recommendations are not science, nor should we allow them to masquerade as science.
We let journalists judge science. We let random blog commentors judge science. Heck, we even let lawyers and law professors judge science.
Why are bureaucrats different?
Personally I’m in favor of just abolishing the position of Surgeon General (as was suggested after Jocelyn Elders resigned in disgrace) and being done with it. Barring that then yes, I’d agree that the President has the right to appoint people who support or will support his policy preferences and if they find them so disagreeable they cannot carry them out, then they should either quit or decline the offer in the first place.
Personally, I think progressives would do better to reframe the debate as about policy. But given how the "sound science/junk science" frame was created, and by whom, it is ironic that it turns out that the Bush administration (and allies such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute) have been substantially worse than liberals in simply getting the science wrong, or intentionally mangling it.
First, you have the science part, which states the nature of the problem, it's extent, who is hurt or benefits, and so on. it's a kin to saying,
"The Potomac river, in it's natural state, contained no pollutants, but had a lot of sediment. Today, the river contains PCBs, mercury, and other toxic elements. The amounts of these toxic elements exceed EPA standards."
The policy part of the study should state what the gov't should or should not do about the problem, the projected costs, who benefits and who is hurt, and so on. In other words,
"The federal gov't should coordinate with the bordering states of Virginia, DC, and Maryland to take steps to identify the sources of the pollution and bring it all down to meet or exceed EPA limits."
The problem we have seen with the Bush Administration is that they don't like the science part. So what they write is that the Potomac River is not polluted, so nothing needs to be done. The scientists who write the science are told that they are wrong, the reseach is sloppy, the reasoning poor, and so on. By framing it this way, they never actually get to the policy part.
They have done this with global warming and others, so I'm not surprised to find that the Bush Ad.finds no health care problems in these united states.
Yes. And how foolish of us, as the American public, to think that government might actually work to make life better for everyone, instead of just playing politics.
What next? Can we expect the weather service to bend the weather reports to make Bush look good?
But doesn't that prove the original point. Virtually every politician and bureaucrats thinks (often misguidedly) that they are acting in the public's best interest. So, who should be the final judge of what the public's best interest is? Bureaucrats or elected officials?
(BTW, I don't anything about Ron Paul's credentials as a physician. I will tell you that as a physician Frist qualified as an outstanding major leaguer, while Dean would be counted no more than a mediocre minor leaguer. Putting aside political, if that were possible where Frist and Dean were concerned, I think Frist would be much better qualified to serve as SG than would Dean. I don't think Paul would be at all qualified to serve in that position.)