NIHAC has been involved with efforts at the local level to inform county council
and city council members about King County health policy change and its impact
on vulnerable populations. All NIHAC presentations involve a discussion about
politics and its role in health. Please read the email below about the current
situation in the United States in terms of health, science, politics and
policy. Do Americans have a right to access information about health that is
not distorted for political reasons?

Beth Rivin

__________________________________________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 19:48:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Nancy Krieger <nkrieger@...>
To: Spirit of 1848 <spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: nancy krieger <nkrieger@...>
Subject: [spiritof1848] Update - Restoring Scientific Integrity (fwd)

fyi ...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 16:43:10 -0500

UPDATE - RESTORING SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY CAMPAIGN

Two weeks ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) launched an
important campaign to restore scientific integrity to federal
policymaking. The Bush administration's unprecedented suppression and
distortion of scientific analysis on a wide range of issues-from childhood
lead poisoning and mercury emissions to climate change, reproductive
health, and nuclear weapons-presents a serious threat to our health,
environment, and security. In the few weeks since the launch of our
campaign, we have seen an overwhelming response and we wanted to share our
results and let you know what to expect in the coming months.

On February 18, we released a statement signed by 62 of the nation's
leading scientists-including 20 Nobel laureates and 19 recipients of the
National Medal of Science-condemning the administration's abuse of
science. In addition, UCS issued a report investigating the integrity of
science in federal policymaking, and launched an online information center
to help scientists and concerned citizens learn about this important
effort. In the first few days alone, our
<http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20275> campaign site received
more than 50,000 visitors, over two thousand scientists added their name
to our statement, and thousands more downloaded our report.

Congress has also heard the scientists' call to action. On March 9,
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) will hold a hearing on this issue in the Senate
Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee that he chairs. Three
prominent members of the scientific community will testify:

Kurt Gottfried is emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University. As
a leading authority on fundamental particle physics, Dr. Gottfried has
served on the senior staff of the European Center for Nuclear Research in
Geneva and is a former chair of the Division of Particles and Fields of
the American Physical Society. He is the chairman of the UCS Board of
Directors.

F. Sherwood Rowland is Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth
System Science at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Rowland is a
specialist in atmospheric chemistry and radiochemistry and was, with
colleague Mario Molina, the first scientist to warn that
chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere were depleting the
earth's ozone layer. In 1995, Rowland shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
with Molina and Paul Crutzen for this work. Dr. Rowland has served as
president of American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was
a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel convened at the
request of President Bush when he entered office to assess the science of
climate change.

Bruce Alberts is president of the NAS and chair of the National Research
Council, which with the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute
of Medicine form the National Academies.

We hope to contact you shortly after the hearing and inform you of actions
you can take to help us in this effort. In the meantime, you can get
involved in several ways:

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20275> Get informed.
Visit our website to learn more about the Restoring Scientific Integrity
(RSI) campaign.

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20276> Scientist
Statement. If you are a scientist, engineer, doctor, or graduate student
in the sciences, please read and sign the statement.

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20282> Spread the word.
Whether you are a citizen or scientist, you can help us by telling a
friend or colleague about our campaign.

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20278> Watch the hearing.
Details from the McCain hearing will soon be posted on the Senate
website.

And finally, we wanted to share just a few of the press reports on this
issue:

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20279> Read the New York
Times article

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20280> Read the New York
Times editorial

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20272> Listen to the
National Public Radio story

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20273> Read the USA Today
article

* <http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20274> Read the
Washington Post article
<http://www.ucsaction.org/ctt.asp?u=96699&l=20274>

Thank you again for all your support. Together we can help restore
scientific integrity to the policymaking process and better safeguard
the health and safety of all Americans.

Sincerely,
Kevin Knobloch
President




We welcome posting on social justice & public health that provide:

a) information (e.g. about conferences or job announcements or publications
relevant to and making explicit links between social justice & public health),
and

b) substantive queries or comments directly addressing issues relevant to and
making explicit links between social justice and public health.

If your posting is only about social justice/political issues, or only about
public health issues, and does not explicitly connect issues of social justice
& public health, please do not post it on this listserve.

Please do NOT post petitions containing text suggesting (or requesting) that
signatures should be sent to the Spirit of 1848 bullein board, as the
signatures & replies clog up the works. Instead, if you have a petition you
want to circulate, please post a notice about the petition (which can include
its text) and provide YOUR email address so people can email you with their
signature and/or get a copy of the petition that is to be signed (or else
provide the email address and/or website where people should send their
signature and/or get a copy of the peition). Also, to limit e-mail volume,
please do not send posts directed toward a single individual to the list at
large. Instead of hitting 'reply', cut and paste the person's address into the
'to' field, and send your message directly to the her/him.

Community email addresses:
Post message: spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: spiritof1848-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: spiritof1848-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: spiritof1848-owner@yahoogroups.com
Web page: www.progressivehn.org

To subscribe or un-subscribe send an e-mail to the address
specified above with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe"
in the subject line.
Yahoo! Groups Links