Weird science.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Let's use a makeshift version of the scientific method to frame criticism of the Bush administration's handling of scientific data.

Observation: Factual scientific information reported by the government's own scientists and advisory panels is often missing from final policies issued by the Bush admin- istration.

Hypothesis: The Bush administration deliberately distorts and suppresses scientific information to suit political and policy goals.

Prediction: An analysis of scientific environmental, biomedical and health data submitted to the federal government will show a systematic pattern of censorship and manipulation consistent with Bush administration policy objectives.

Bingo. A panel of 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement Wednesday that the Bush administration had systematically censored and suppressed reports by its own scientists, stacked advisory committees with unqualified political appointees and disbanded government panels that provide unwanted advice.

Simultaneously, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy, issued a 37-page report detailing the accusations.

Among its charges:

1) Distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees involves data about air pollutants, heat-trapping emissions, reproductive health, drug-resistant bacteria, endangered species, forest health and military intelligence. "These actions have consequences for human health, public safety and community well-being," the report said.

2) Wide-ranging efforts to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system include appointing underqualified individuals to important advisory roles in childhood lead poisoning prevention and reproductive health; applying political litmus tests that have no bearing on a nominee's expertise or advisory role; appointing a non-scientist to a senior position in the president's scientific advisory staff, and dismissing highly qualified scientific advisers.

3) The administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about "sensitive" topics - issues that might provoke opposition from the administration's political and ideological supporters.

The report acknowledges that some political manipulation of scientific data has occurred in other administrations, but the scope and scale of what was found in the Bush administration was "unprece- dented."

One example cited in the report involves the suppression of an Environmental Protection Agency study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act.

Translating the ramifications of data suppression into human lives, the scientists said that if the first President Bush and former President Richard Nixon had similarly allowed politics to overrule science, more than 200,000 deaths and millions of respiratory and cardiovascular disease cases would not have been prevented with the signing of the original Clean Air Act and its 1990 amendments.

These charges carry such grave consequences that Congress should respond by holding oversight hearings. Good public policy depends on good information, which includes impartial analysis of scientific findings.

The Bush administration, desperately in need of a credibility transplant, must reassure the nation that it isn't allowing political motives to influence its use of objective research in the formulation of policies that affect people's lives.