(Unfortunately, this link requires registration)
Scientific groups angry at loss of Elizabeth Blackburn from group considering stem cells
>>US President George W. Bush dismissed two members of his President's Council on Bioethics last Friday afternoon in a move that has been dubbed a ?very ill-advised decision? by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) president Bettie Sue Masters....
To replace Blackburn, May, and Stephen Carter, a Yale University law professor who left the council in September 2002, Bush appointed Benjamin S. Carson, the director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins and a vocal abortion opponent; Peter A. Lawler, head of the Government and International Studies Department at Berry College in Georgia; and Diana J. Schaub, head of the Political Science Department at Loyola College in Maryland.....
Coming on the heels of protests from the Union of Concerned Scientists and others that the White House has distorted scientific facts to support its policies on the environment, public health, and biomedical research, this latest action by the Bush administration has done more than raise a few eyebrows in the scientific community. Several professional organizations, including the ASCB and the ASBMB, have expressed their disappointment in Bush's decision, which will lower the fraction of research scientists on the council.
?Even before Dr. Blackburn's dismissal, scientists were heavily outnumbered by nonscientists with strong anti-research ideological views,? said ASCB public policy chair Larry Goldstein in a statement. ?Now it will be even more unlikely than before that the council will be able to make informed ethical decisions.?
Many also believe that it is an effort to increase the number of conservatives on the council. Bernard Siegel, the Genetics Policy Institute's executive director, told The Scientist in an E-mail, ?It is a shame that [Blackburn] is being replaced by outspoken foes of [somatic cell nuclear transfer] research. This is? another punch in the face to scientists and disease advocates by the folks more concerned about 'energizing their political base' than finding cures.?<<