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<div><font size="1"><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/scientists-signon-statement.html">http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/scientists-signon-statement.html</a></font></div>
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<div><font size="1">On February 18, 2004, <font color="#000000">over 60</font> leading scientists–Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents–signed the statement below, voicing their concern over the misuse of science by the Bush administration.
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<div><font size="2">For example, in support of the president's decision to avoid regulating emissions that cause climate change, the administration has consistently misrepresented the findings of the National Academy of Sciences, government scientists, and the expert community at large. Thus in June 2003, the White House demanded extensive changes in the treatment of climate change in a major report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To avoid issuing a scientifically indefensible report, EPA officials eviscerated the discussion of climate change and its consequences.
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<div><font size="2">Across a broad range of policy areas, the administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel:
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<div><font size="2">Highly qualified scientists have been dropped from advisory committees dealing with childhood lead poisoning, environmental and reproductive health, and drug abuse, while individuals associated with or working for industries subject to regulation have been appointed to these bodies.
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<div><font size="2">Censorship and political oversight of government scientists is not restricted to the EPA, but has also occurred at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Interior, when scientific findings are in conflict with the administration's policies or with the views of its political supporters.
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<div><font size="2">The administration is supporting revisions to the Endangered Species Act that would greatly constrain scientific input into the process of identifying endangered species and critical habitats for their protection.
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<div><font size="2">Existing scientific advisory committees to the Department of Energy on nuclear weapons, and to the State Department on arms control, have been disbanded.</font></div>
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<div><font size="2">In making the invalid claim that Iraq had sought to acquire aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment centrifuges, the administration disregarded the contrary assessment by experts at Livermore, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
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<div><font size="2">Ted Moffett</font></div>