growing numbers of researchers, say their findings are being discounted, distorted or quashed by Bush Administration appointees.

TIME.com: The Political Science Test -- Feb. 13, 2006 -- Page 1: "By MARK THOMPSON, KAREN TUMULTY | Posted Sunday, Feb. 05, 2006

Bush said science would guide his decisions, but those in the lab see ideology intruding on their work

The 3 1/2-hr. conference call brought together nearly two dozen of the nation's best minds on the subject of air quality--and many of them were steamed. As the scientists of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, they are rarely overruled on their recommendations about how the government should react to the latest and best research on the dangers of dirty air. Seven months ago, they warned the EPA in a letter that unless it made at least modest reductions in the amount of airborne soot, thousands of Americans would die prematurely each year. But last December, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, citing 'the best available science,' ignored their counsel. On the phone call last week, an exasperated Dr. James Crapo, professor of medicine at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center, told his fellow scientists, 'We need to write another letter and this time take a stronger stand.'

Starting when he was a presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush has often assured voters that his policymaking would be guided by 'sound science.' Last week, in his State of the Union address, the President pointed to scientific research as the way to 'lead the world in opportunity and innovation for decades to come.' Yet growing numbers of researchers, both in and out of government, say their findings--on pollution, climate change, reproductive health, stem-cell research and other areas in which science often finds itself at odds with religious, ideological or corporate interests--are being discounted, distorted or quashed by Bush Administration appointees." ...