Threat to process of scientific review.

[P. Kerim Friedman]

This is an important topic that hasn't gotten much media attention. New
rules may bar scientists who receive money from the government from
contributing to regulatory peer-reviewed documents. This essentially
means that only those beholden to industry funding will be allowed to
participate.

- kerim

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/
12/07/science_for_special_interests/>

The dangerous proposal is buried in an OMB Bulletin on peer review
dated Aug. 29, 2003 -- not something scientists usually peruse. The
Bulletin, if finally adopted, would place the OMB's Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs and the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy in the position of approving the
scientific peer review used by all executive branch agencies for "all
significant regulatory-science documents."

The Bulletin claims that this simply enhances peer review -- the
accepted method for judging all scientific work or studies. Yet in the
Bulletin, OMB introduces a radical new idea, camouflaged in benign
language, that reviewers should be "independent of the agency" for whom
the review is being conducted.

Not wrong on its face, but what does independent mean? Among reasons
that would disqualify a reviewer for lack of independence is that he or
she is "currently receiving or seeking substantial funding from the
agency." Those receiving agency grants, and thus lacking independence,
are the very same scientists judged by the agency to be the best to
conduct the nation's publicly funded research.

If this meant excluding a handful of scientists, it might not be
unreasonable. But were federal science agencies to be required to
disqualify all scientists who had ever received agency funds, this
would drastically limit the pool of "independent" reviewers.

To grasp the implications of this radical departure, one must recognize
that in the United States there are effectively two pots of money that
support science: one from government and one from industry. (A much
smaller contribution comes from charitable foundations.) If one
excludes scientists supported by the government, including most
scientists based at universities, the remaining pool of reviewers will
be largely from industry -- corporate political supporters of George W.
Bush.

Read more here: <http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp#484>