The Science of Morality

In order to demonstrate that the abstinence-only programs the Bush Administration funds and promotes were actually working, administration officials instructed the Centers for Disease Control not to report on actual birth rate numbers of participants in its abstinence-only test program, but only the participants’ attitudes and attendance in the program. The Administration, as well as the CDC, was aware of the demonstrated effectiveness of condom use in the prevention of AIDS; but needing to obscure the data that proved this effectiveness, the Administration directed the CDC to emphasize condom failure rates in its educational material (the Administration has never cited the failure rate of abstinence programs—which is more than twice the failure rate of condoms.) Similarly, the National Cancer Institute was instructed to post a claim on its web site that abortion promotes breast cancer—despite the fact that a large study had shown absolutely no connection between them.

More recently, a vaccine that will prevent HPV (human papillomavirus), which is the primary cause of cervical cancer—which itself takes the lives of nearly five thousand American women each year—has made it to FDA review and is now, finally, on the market. However, far from an objective, scientific evaluation, the makers of the vaccine were subjected to the scrutiny of the Bush Administration’s Advisory committee on Immunization Practices. The Bush Administration and its allies believe an HPV vaccination will encourage sexual promiscuity. They prefer to funnel money instead to abstinence-only programs, which have been shown, time and time again, to be ineffective.

But politics infiltrate all corners of the scientific community, especially when there is money at stake. In December of 2005, the EPA, against the advice of its own experts, pushed for new standards for the Clean Air Act (which are decidedly less green.) Politics appropriates science. While hardly new, this kind of scientific manipulation has never before been a core strategy in a presidential administration before. Religious conservatives have never before had such an influence on the way science is used—or not used—in policymaking. Faith and ideology are affected science as much as corporate dollars and profit motives—and often more. For example, even if a vaccine for HIV were to become available, Michael Specter recently reported, evangelicals such as Reginald Finger—who was the former medical adviser to Focus on the Family—would not necessarily support its use.

Finger also sits on the Centers for Disease Control’s Immunization Committee.

The Bush Administration has made a concerted and largely successful effort to control the speech and the opinions of American scientists. Today, Michael Specter reported in The New Yorker, American scientists are not allowed to travel to international science conferences without the government’s permission; before being permitted to participate in World Health Organization meetings, they must promise to advocate U.S. policy; the federal government has begun preventing more and more scientists from attending major international scientific conferences, including the International AIDS Conference (the cutbacks came after the organizer of the conference refused to invite President and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Franklin Graham to give a speech on “faith-based” solutions to AIDS.) The chilling effects of tight governmental control of scientists could lead to profound changes in the way research is conducted in the years to come.