Bush dismisses council members

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.Elizabeth Blackburn, a University of California, San Francisco, biochemist and former president of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), and William May, a medical ethicist and former head of the Maguire Center of Ethics at Southern Methodist University, received notification last Friday that their service on the council was no longer needed. Blackburn told The Scientist that she received a call from the White House personnel office last Wednesday (February 28) requesting her to call them back on Friday afternoon. When she returned the call, she was notified of her dismissal. Although she and May frequently expressed views opposing those of the president and the council's chairman Leon R. Kass, she said that she had “no inkling” that a dismissal was imminent and that she has not been contacted by Kass at all.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.Bush established the council as a federal advisory committee in January 2002. The 18-person group, comprising scientists, lawyers, physicians, and others, published its first report, a recommendation for federal regulations on human cloning, in July 2002. Since then, the council has issued two more reports on biotechnology (October 2003) and stem cell research (January 2004), as well as a collection of readings about bioethics (December 2003). Bush renewed his executive order for the council in January when its first 2-year term expired. The council members' terms also expired in January; only Blackburn and May were not invited back. 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.”Kass responded to these criticisms in an editorial in today's Washington Post: “Our new members are all people of distinction, ethical seriousness and intellectual independence, with the sorts of competences we need for the new and different work ahead. Unfortunately, these membership changes were met with unfounded and false charges of political 'stacking' of the council. Such charges are as bogus today as they were when the council was formed.” Explaining the replacement of Blackburn with Carson, Kass wrote, “[T]his change reflects the changing focus of the council's work, as we move away from issues of reproduction and genetics to focus on issues of neuroscience, brain and behavior.”Blackburn pointed out that the council already has “two fine psychiatrists,” Charles Krauthammer and Paul McHugh, and one cognitive neuroscientist, Michael Gazzaniga, so she doesn't think Kass' explanation is valid. “Two dissenting voices are now not on that council,” she said. “Now I fear it's very lopsided.” She said that with the current ratio of scientists to nonscientists, the President's Council on Bioethics is “not an ideal council.” While it's necessary to have a variety of viewpoints, “it is bioethics, after all.”Editor's note: See a letter on this story.

Bush dismisses council members

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