RESEARCHERS SAY SCREENINGS FOR COMMITTEES ARE POLITICAL

Today's Topic: Scientific Advisory Appointments

WASHINGTON - When psychologist William R. Miller was asked to join a panel
that advises the National Institute on Drug Abuse, he thought he had been
selected for his expertise in addiction. Then a Bush administration staff
member called with some unexpected questions.

Did Miller support abortion rights? What about the death penalty for "drug
kingpins"? And had he voted for President Bush?

Apparently, Miller said, he did not give enough right answers -- he had
not, for example, voted for Bush. He was never appointed to the panel.

With rising alarm, researchers are complaining that the Bush administration
is using political and ideological screening tests to try to ensure that
its scientific consultants recommend no policies that are out of step with
the political agenda of the White House.

Administration officials say they are merely doing what their predecessors
have always done: Using appointment powers to make sure their viewpoint is
well represented on the government's scientific advisory boards, an
important if unglamorous part of the policy-making process.

There are more than 250 boards devoted to public health and biomedical
research alone, composed of experts from outside the government who help
guide policy on gene therapy, bioterrorism, acceptable pollutant levels and
other complex matters.

Still, critics say, the Bush administration is going further than its
predecessors in considering ideology as well as scientific expertise in
forming the panels.

A committee that merely gives technical advice on research proposals, as
opposed to setting policy, has even been subject to screening, something
the critics say was unheard of in previous administrations.

"I don't think any administration has penetrated so deeply into the
advisory committee structure as this one, and I think it matters," said
Donald Kennedy, past president of Stanford University and editor of
Science, the premier U.S. scientific journal. "If you start picking people
by their ideology instead of their scientific credentials, you are
inevitably reducing the quality of the advisory group."

Many of the complaints concern agencies within the Department of Health and
Human Services.

On Dec. 10, the Food and Drug Administration rejected a nominee for an
advisory board who is known for his support of human cloning in medical
research.

Also recently, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's staff
rejected a nominee to a board of the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health who supports federal rules to curtail repetitive stress
injuries in the workplace.

The nominees had been chosen by officials within the FDA and occupational
health agency but were then rejected by more senior officials. No specific
reasons were given, but Bush opposes human cloning and last year signed a
rollback of Clinton-era rules designed to limit repetitive stress injuries.

Those rejections followed incidents this fall in which public health
advocates and Democratic lawmakers alleged that the administration had
placed people sympathetic to industry on two panels at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.

One panel advises CDC officials on the prevention of lead poisoning in
children. The other makes recommendations on a range of issues, from
environmental toxins to bioterrorism preparations.

"They're stacking committees to get the advice they know they want to hear,
which is a charade," said David Michaels, a professor of public health at
George Washington University, who served in the Clinton administration.
"Why have an advisory panel if you know what everyone is going to say, and
they agree with you?"

Some critics also complain that Thompson has added an ideological cast to
the mission of some advisory panels.

To the applause of anti-abortion groups, the administration in October
directed a panel to study what protections are offered to embryos during
medical experiments, using language that equated embryos with "human
subjects." Health officials said their intent was to add protections to
pregnant women who participate in medical experiments.

Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department, said
Bush and Thompson were trying to add balance to the advisory committees.

"This whole idea of a grand conspiracy here or a litmus test -- it's just
not true," Pierce said. "When you look at the totality of any of these
committees, you'll find that they are highly qualified and represent a
broad section of the thinking, so that you have a spirited discussion of
the issues."

Others said that some of the complaints may reflect a difference in style
between Thompson, who as former governor of Wisconsin is familiar with
using all the levers of power, and his predecessor in the federal
government's top health slot, Donna Shalala.

"This is a four-term governor. This is not an academic, as Dr. Shalala
was," said Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health. "This secretary scrutinizes appointments."

But Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center, a New York bioethics
center, said he saw a "pattern" in the rejection of nominees to health
panels, including his own nomination to the Biological Response Modifiers
Advisory Committee, an FDA panel that considers protein drugs, gene therapy
and other matters.

"The fact that they would even bother to blacklist me is ... deeply sad,"
Murray said. "It portends a distortion of the process of determining what
the facts are on a health topic or in environmental policy."