CONGRESS has an astonishing capacity for mixing urgent matters of state with
some of the most trivial nonsense imaginable.
Consider what happened earlier this month when the Senate was debating how
much money to give to two federal departments鈥擫abor, and Health and Human
Services. Of all the spending bills that Congress considers, the Labor and HHS
appropriation is by far the largest, currently standing at $406.8
billion. Although most of this goes for social welfare programmes, a fair chunk
goes on what is called 鈥渄iscretionary spending鈥� such as biomedical research.
With so much money at stake, you might think that senators would want to give
their full attention to the legislation lest they be accused of wasting
taxpayers鈥� money.
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You might think that, but you鈥檇 be wrong. In the middle of the debate on the
bill, Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania, asked the president
of the Senate to let him introduce Senate Resolution 175. The president agreed,
and Santorum and his fellow senator for Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, spent about
15 minutes urging the Senate to approve the resolution.
And what was this resolution that was so astoundingly important it held up
the passing of a $406.8 billion spending bill? It was congratulations and
commendations for Joe Paterno, head football coach for Penn State University,
who, on 27 October, became the Class 1-A university football team coach with the
most wins in the history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The resolution passed?
Oh yes鈥攁nd so did the spending bill.
THE science press that revolves around Washington DC is hovering between
shock and exhaustion. The problem? The unexpected way that September鈥檚 big story
about terrorism, law enforcement and foreign war suddenly shifted to anthrax.
The mysterious 鈥渆vil-doer鈥� (to borrow President George Bush鈥檚 favourite new
word) behind these bioattacks has proven a nightmarish villain.
Reporters used to the carefully managed regurgitation of new findings from
scientific journals, and to the attentions of scientists who are eager to share
their findings, found themselves clawing for scraps of news. The number of
scientists who knew anything about anthrax was small 鈥攁nd the number who
knew about preparing weapons-grade anthrax was even smaller.
It didn鈥檛 help that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta
were, for the first few weeks, not returning phone calls. They were the experts
on the ground as the anthrax powder insinuated itself into the postal system and
eventually into peoples鈥� lungs. But for the most part, it was politicians who
were making the public鈥攁nd all too often, incorrect鈥攕tatements.
According to scientists outside the loop, the FBI had told the CDC to clam up.
It fell to scientific colleagues outside the government to impart the latest
information from the CDC and then talk to the science press. Of course, most of
the science press didn鈥檛 know the identities of these anointed few.
The boggy pace of communication was all the more ironic given a certain
finding from the past few years. It seems that the 鈥渨ar game鈥� exercises in which
biowar scenarios were played out by medical and military experts to test
American preparedness routinely showed that public panic rises as communication
fails.