Science

News of GlaxoSmithKline's coverup of the health risks of their diabetes drug, "Avandia," has also highlighted serious problems with scientific integrity at the FDA.  In 2006, an FDA scientist who recommended requiring a warning label about Avandia's possible heart health risks was shot down and reprimanded by her superiors.  In 2007, the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, petitioned the [...]

An LA Times report details the disappointment expressed by some government scientists with a lack of improvement in scientific integrity since President Obama took office and called for new rules to protect scientific integrity.  Such new rules have yet to be issued, and lower level government scientists still report political pressure to alter their results as well as a lack [...]

Spurious investigation of UVA scientist sends a chilling message (2010) In May 2010, Union of concerned Scientists (UCS) reported that the University of Virginia was calling for an end to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's investigation of internationally respected climate scientist Michael Mann. Cuccinelli has a reputation as a hero among conservative tea party activists, and provided no evidence of [...]

In 2009, a handful of cancer patients, professional organizations, several individual doctors and researchers along with the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the decision to grant a patent to Myriad Genetics for the genes BRCA1 and 2, which are associated with hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer.  In March 2010, the New York federal court ruled that [...]

  Members, Assembly Judiciary Committee 1020 N Street, Room 104 Sacramento, California 95814 Re: AB 698 - Oppose Dear Members of the Judiciary Committee:             The National Coalition Against Censorship writes to express concerns about AB 698, which would create a new cause of action for making disparaging comments about perishable agricultural products, because of its potential to chill protected [...]

The  House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), conducted a hearing on the censorship of government climate scientists.  Among the issues the committee addressed was the suppression of federal scientists’ speech and writing, the distortion and suppression of research results, and retaliation against those who protest these acts. In response to the [...]

On January 30, 2007, the Oversight Committee heard testimony from a number of leading climate change scientists regarding allegations that officials edited scientific reports and made other efforts to interfere with the work of government scientists who study climate change.

A bi-partisan letter from U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R - Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D - West Virginia) pressed Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson to "end any further financial assistance" to groups "whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth."

As part of its 2007 budget proposal submitted on February 6, NASA eliminated the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” from its mission statement; a move that alarmed several NASA employees. Unlike the 2002 changes to the NASA mission statement that included an open process across the agency, this decision was made by NASA Headquarters without consulting NASA [...]

Dr. James E. Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, found himself under close scrutiny by his superiors at NASA due to his attempts to inform the public about global warming.