Recent pieces address abortion bans’ impacts, defending science against attacks, the decision about declaring an Ebola emergency, and more.
Environmental Health
Congress and science: White House threatens to veto bills that would change EPA science advisory boards and limit EPA use of science
In action that may portend how the 114th Congress will treat science, the House has passed two bills that would limit the EPA’s use of science. The White House is threatening to veto both – and an additional bill that in the White House’s view could weaken the Clean Air Act’s public health and environmental protections.
Cancer
Public Health Classics: Assessing air pollution and health in six U.S. cities, researchers’ findings changed the air we breathe
In the 1974, most of us thought that air pollution was something that just looked and smelled bad. But public health researchers had just launched a study to determine whether air pollution shortened people’s lives. Twenty years later they published their results. It forever changed the way we think about and address air pollutants.
Drug Safety
Medical marijuana progress under Obama not what advocates had hoped; recent crackdown puts patients in the middle
For years, Peter Rosenfeld was looking for an effective way to treat what doctors had diagnosed as severe and intractable migraines. He’d heard of medical marijuana, but thought it was a joke — that it was just a way for people to justify their marijuana use. Today, he’s a passionate advocate for medicinal marijuana and one of many advocates disappointed at recent federal actions.
In the New York Times last week, Gardiner Harris reported on tensions between FDA and the White House over FDA decisions that White House officials fear will be politically problematic for President Obama. Harris reminds readers that “The Bush administration repeatedly stopped the agency from issuing rules to prevent contamination of eggs, produce and other […]
By Susan Wood, cross-posted from RH Reality Check On Friday, January 6th, 2012, several public health experts addressed the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on the issue of Plan B One-Step® and the Obama administration’s refusal to let the Food and Drug Administration lift the age restriction from over-the-counter deliver of emergency […]
My colleague Susan F. Wood had an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend about the Obama administration’s overruling of the scientifically grounded FDA decision to approve emergency contraceptive Plan B for over-the-counter sale without age restrictions. She begins by going back in time to a much more promising moment: President Obama’s signing […]
Less than two months after taking office, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity, which stated: The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used […]
Environmental Health
“Not Fully Competent” or “Not Fully Candid”: Administration Disappoints on Oil Spill Science
Several news outlets have reported that the commission appointed by President Obama to study the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has issued preliminary reports that are sharply critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the disaster. I downloaded the commission’s draft working paper “The Amount and Fate of the Oil” to see how they described […]
Back in March of 2009, President Obama signed a memorandum that laid out six scientific integrity principles and gave the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 120 days to “develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.” My colleagues and I submitted comments and waited eagerly for […]