Who's advising McCain on science?

Written byBob Grant

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While Democratic Presidential hopeful linkurl:Barack Obama;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54995/ unveiled an impressive stable of science policy advisers last week, his opponent linkurl:John McCain;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55012/ has yet to ante up. As linkurl:__Wired__;http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/obama-campaign.html reported on Wednesday, the Obama science team includes Nobel laureates linkurl:Harold Varmus;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14696/ and linkurl:Peter Agre;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/21666/ along with three other noted scientists - Stanford agricultural researcher (and former Monsanto board member) linkurl:Sharon Long,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/11532/ University of Chicago astrophysicist linkurl:Donald Lamb,;http://astro.uchicago.edu/people/donald-q-lamb.shtml and former American Association for the Advancement of Science president and University of Michigan geneticist linkurl:Gilbert Omenn.;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14109/ At a linkurl:forum;http://sharp.sefora.org/candidate-forum/ on Thursday in Washington, DC, which featured Obama's health policy adviser, Dora Hughes and her McCain campaign counterpart, Jay Khosla, it sounded as though the Republican candidate was ready to introduce his science advisory team to the world. During the forum, which was webcast and hosted by science advocacy group Scientists and Engineers for America, Khosla was asked who McCain's science advisers were. Though Khosla wouldn't give names, he did say: "We have a science group that works for the Senator McCain campaign. Our communications shop can provide you with the names of the science advisers." After repeated calls and E-mails to the McCain campaign, however, no science advisers were offered up. At one point a volunteer answering phones for the campaign said, "They don't have any listed."

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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