Posted on: Tuesday, March 2, 2004

EDITORIAL
Bioethics shuffle damages credibility

It is fairly clear where President Bush stands on a variety of tricky ethical disputes such as stem cell research. Out of both personal conviction and political necessity, Bush has taken a relatively conservative stand on abortion, stem cell research and other controversial bioethics issues.

Precisely because such issues are so difficult, the president has wisely appointed a panel of medical, ethical and scientific experts to advise his administration. The idea is that the expert panel would be able to step away from political pressures and deal with controversial matters on their merit.

But Bush has undercut his own good efforts on this front with the apparent manipulation of the membership of the Council on Bioethics to eliminate members who tend to disagree with him.

According to The Washington Post, Bush has dismissed two members of the council who support stem cell research and has replaced them with others who appear to be in philosophical agreement with him.

Off the committee are Elizabeth Blackburn, a well-known California biologist who has clashed with council chairman Leon Klass, and William May, a respected scientist and scholar who holds views on embryo research that run counter to those held by conservative members of the council.

These changes suggest the administration is more interested in a panel that will confirm its views than an independent group of scientific advisers.

The Bush administration has been under fire recently from scientists who contend good science is being trumped by political goals in the setting of national policy.

For instance, the Union of Concerned Scientists recently released a report signed by a number of prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winners and National Medal of Science winners, contending that the administration manipulates scientific information to make it match administration policies.

This latest shuffle on the Council on Bioethics will give additional ammunition to those critics and further undermines Bush's authority to set policy in these most difficult areas.

Clearly, the president has a right to adopt whatever policy he feels is appropriate. Many in the country would agree with him on issues such as embryo and stem cell research.

But what is the point of creating a special advisory commission if it does not represent all points of view?