White House
gregladen | September 14, 2017The policy of the Republican Trump White House is that if a reporter or commenter says something that the White House strongly disagrees with, the reporter or commenter should be fired.
It remains to be seen how the Trump White House will enforce this newly articulated policy.
The policy was provided as a response to a question about an African American reporter identifying Trump and the White House as being aligned with white supremacy, which is a widely held and well documented truth.
Cindy Boren at the Washington Post has more here.
oracknows | July 29, 2015Antivaccine activists amuse me.
Obviously, I think they are a major risk to public health. Their relentless demonization of vaccines as causing autism, autoimmune diseases, "shaken baby syndrome," and even sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) serves no purpose other than to frighten parents and discourage them from vaccinating. As despicable as some of their antics are—for instance, blaming vaccines for SIDS and shaken baby syndrome or comparing the vaccine program to the Holocaust because it's a "mass poisoning program" (I'm talking to you, Jake Crosby)—some are just as entertaining as others…
oracknows | January 22, 2014I realize that I just wrote about infamous cancer doctor Stanislaw Burzynski yesterday. (Note how I refuse to call him an "oncologist," mainly because he isn't one, having never completed an oncology fellowship—or even an internal medicine residency, the usual prerequisite to do an oncology fellowship.) However, there's a bit more that I wanted to touch on before moving on to other topics. What brought this on was a Google Alert that appeared in my in box yesterday relevant to yesterday's post. You might recall that yesterday I mentioned a campaign by the Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-…
carlyo | February 12, 2013TONIGHT- special guests of the First Lady at the State of the Union include USA Science & Engineering Festival X-STEM speaker Bobak Ferdowsi and Nifty Fifty Speaker Jack Andraka!
Bobak Ferdowsi- referred to as NASA's "Mohawk Guy" is a flight director at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to his inspiring day-to-day work on the Mars Curiosity mission, he volunteers as a FIRST robotics mentor to get more boys and girls excited about STEM education. We are thrilled for Bobak to participate in our Extreme STEM Symposium! Read his full biography here.
Jack Andraka- 15 Year-Old…
lborkowski | September 12, 2011As Jori Lewis notes in the case study about World Trade Center recovery workers' health and safety, those who showed up at Ground Zero on the days and weeks after 9/11 got some misleading information about the risks they faced. Most notably, the EPA issued reassuring statements about the air quality - when, according to a 2003 EPA Inspector General report, the agency had insufficient data and analyses to support calling the air there safe. More accurate information might have increased the use of respirators and delayed people's return to homes and offices in the vicinity of Ground Zero. Now…
kcollins | October 17, 2010Today the White House will have their own Science Fair that will kick off the final week of the USA Science and Engineering Festival.
Read about it here.
Event Will Highlight Winners of National Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Competitions
WASHINGTON, DC -- On Monday, October 18th, President Obama will host the White House Science Fair celebrating the winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions. The President will view exhibits of these students' work, ranging from breakthrough basic research to new inventions, followed by…
terrasig | December 9, 2009By way of my substance abuse blogger colleague, The Discovering Alcoholic, I learned of yesterday's New York Times article by Sarah Kershaw on Dr. A. Thomas McLellan. McLellan is a psychologist and drug abuse researcher with over 400 peer-reviewed publications to his credit. He held an academic appointment at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and was scientific director of the Treatment Research Institute which he co-founded in 1992 with Jack Durell, MD, and other researchers from Penn's Center for the Studies of Addiction.
However, McLellan is not a career bureaucrat like…
ianhart | August 7, 2007Something else is bothering me about yesterday's USA Today article Science vs. politics gets down and dirty. It's the implication that scientists are speaking out because of political bent.
Science policy professor Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University in Tempe says: "I think the opportunity to use science as a political tool against Bush has been irresistible -- but it is very dangerous for science, and for politics. You can expect to see similar accusations of the political use of science in the next regime." [...] And because polls show that scientists tend to be Democrats, Sarewitz…
ianhart | August 6, 2007This morning, hotel guests across the country this morning woke up to a chronicle of the divide between science and poltics in USA Today's "Science vs. politics gets down and dirty." There's no need to hit the complimentary continental breakfast for a second cup of coffee when your morning news starts
The relationship (between the Bush administration and the nation's scientific community) hit a new low last month when Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, lashed out at his former colleagues in testimony before a House committee.
Normally, I'd think the nation's most circulated…
ianhart | July 26, 2007In a nutshell:
"This administration's political appointees might be unique in their contempt for government scientists and the empiric process that shapes their work."
Read "Frog by frog." Hat-tip to Michael Halpern
ianhart | July 24, 2007A number of voices have weighed in following this months revelation that Surgeon General Richard Cormona had been subject to widespread political restrictions from the White House during his 2002-2006 tenure. Many have held up the story as another example of politics and bias getting in the way of reality-based problem solving -- the Kaiser Family Foundation has even collected some of the editorials, and provides summaries.
Of course, the Washington Machine being what it is, we now have the inevitable backlash. Accordingly, Fox News is attacking the messenger.
It may, indeed, be a fair…
ianhart | June 27, 2007Earlier this week we noted that the Bush administration is continuing its efforts to rewrite history with regard to its stance on global climate change. From E&ETV:
Monica Trauzzi: We've seen a change in tune of sorts from the president recently relating to climate change. Beyond this latest proposal, he also mentioned climate for the first time in this year's State of the Union address. Would you characterize this as a major shift in his position on climate change?
Jim Connaughton: No. I would characterize it as a continuing advancement of the president's strategy on climate change. He…
ianhart | June 25, 2007In an interview with E&ETV last week (subscription required) White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Jim Connaughton managed to get through the entire interview without touting the much-used but much-cherry-picked claim that the US has been beating Europe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
That's not to say that there wasn't some fuzzy math-talk and a bit of revisionist history.
Monica Trauzzi: You mentioned the near-term goals, what steps will the U.S. take to limit emissions in the next 10 to 20 years?
Jim Connaughton: Well, in the next 10 to 20 years we are currently…