Dean: Bush's War on Science

via Barb, Howard Dean's ;atest column takes the Bush Administration to task for placing ideology above science - to the detriment of the public interest, but to the great benefit of the Republican Party:

I write this week's column as a physician.

The Bush administration has declared war on science. In the Orwellian world of 21st century America, two plus two no longer equals four where public policy is concerned, and science is no exception. When a right-wing theory is contradicted by an inconvenient scientific fact, the

science is not refuted; it is simply discarded or ignored.

Egregious examples abound. Over-the-counter morning-after contraceptive sales are banned, despite the recommendation for approval by an independent panel of the Food and Drug Administration review board. The health risks of mercury were discounted by a White House staffer who simply crossed out the word "confirmed" from a phrase describing mercury as a "confirmed public health risk." A National Cancer Institute fact sheet is doctored to suggest that abortion increases breast cancer risk, even though the American Cancer Society concluded that the best study discounts that. Reports on the status of minority health and the importance of breast feeding are similarly watered down to appease right-wing ideologies.

Dean's classic statement about "ideology, not facts", echoed above, is slightly off-base however. The truth is that the Republican Party seeks power for its own sake - there is NO guiding ideology underneath, other than acquisition of power itself. Tomorrow should the Christian Right become electorally irrelevant, the GOP would drop advocacy of their causes as casually and without hesitation as they have rejected federalism, fiscal conservatism, and respect for the military.