Free Republic

Some policymakers, including certain senators and members of Congress, cannot resist ridiculing any research project with an unusual title. Their press releases are perhaps already waiting in the drawer, with blanks for the name of the latest scientist being attacked. The hottest topics for ridicule involve sex, exotic animals and bugs. The champion of mocking science was the late William Proxmire, whose Golden Fleece Awards enlivened dull Senate floor proceedings from 1975 until 1988. His monthly awards became a staple of news coverage. He generated good laughs back home by talking about a “wacko” in a lab coat experimenting with...

Out of Control AIDS and the corruption of medical science Posted on Friday, April 7, 2006. Originally from Harper's Magazine, March 2006. By Celia Farber. Joyce Ann Hafford was a single mother living alone with her thirteen-year-old son, Jermal, in Memphis, Tennessee, when she learned that she was pregnant with her second child. She worked as a customer service representative at a company called CMC Call Center; her son was a top student, an athlete and musician. In April 2003, Hafford, four months pregnant, was urged by her obstetrician to take an HIV test. She agreed, even though she...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Mixing science and politics, Nobel laureates and former presidential advisers are heading to campaign battleground states with a message that George W. Bush is no friend of scientists and should be replaced by John Kerry. "They feel strongly that President Bush has used ideology to distort scientific integrity in energy policy, the environment, global warming, AIDS politics, bioterrorism preparedness and in a number of other areas," said Joy Howell, spokeswoman for the newly formed Scientists and Engineers for Change. The group, which includes 10 Nobel winners and two former presidential advisers, accuses Bush of spending...