WHEREAS:

The Bush Administration is politicizing the fact finding and scientific processes that are designed to help shape government policy-making on a wide range of health, safety and environmental matters; and

WHEREAS:

The White House has intervened to suppress or censor government reports and misrepresent scientific information in order to mislead the public and further the anti-regulatory agenda favored by industry; and

WHEREAS:

While federal agencies traditionally convene scientific experts to serve on advisory committees to help shape policy, under the Bush Administration, agencies have replaced scientific experts on these committees with industry and ideological allies; and

WHEREAS:

Following the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers, the White House forced the Environmental Protections Agency (EPA) to revise press releases to add reassuring statements and remove cautionary information, withholding information about the potential health effects from WTC debris and guidance for cleaning indoor spaces; and

WHEREAS:

The White House Office of Management and Budget killed plans by the EPA in April 2002 to warn the public that as many as 35 million homes might be insulated with asbestos-contaminated insulation called Zonolite; and

WHEREAS:

The Food and Drug Administration released a report in 2003 that distorted findings from a scientific survey of doctors, claiming that consumer advertising by the pharmaceutical industry helped inform patients, when in fact only 4% of the responding physicians reported that advertising informed or educated patients; and

WHEREAS:

Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services, created the National Advisory Committee on Ergonomics to evaluate relevant research and provide advice on ergonomic guidelines and stacked it with seven management representatives while appointing only two union safety experts, creating the first workplace safety advisory committee since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act that does not include an equal number of management and union representatives; and

WHEREAS:

In March 2003, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman named nine food-industry representatives and no consumer representatives to a committee on food safety hazards.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME condemns the Bush Administration's pattern of politicizing scientific processes by stacking advisory committees with industry and ideological allies, withholding information from the public, and editing government reports to suit their convenience.

SUBMITTED BY:

Robert L. Weinmann, M.D., President and Delegate
Gary Robinson, Executive Director and Delegate
Union of American Physicians and Dentists/AFSCME Local 206
California