WHO says the US doesn鈥檛 pay heed to its allies in Europe? To be sure, advice on making war or genetically modified crops isn鈥檛 all that welcome here. But Europe seems to have the ear of science policy makers when it comes to the things Europeans clearly know more about 鈥� such as mad cows.
Since the discovery of a cow with the disease in Washington state in December 2003, government scientists have been struggling to decide how much they need to change the way beef is moved from farm and feedlot to the dinner table. Recently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conceded that European scientists might know more about this than Americans. The department invited experts to weigh in on what to do. Ulrich Kihm, the former head veterinarian of Switzerland, where mad cow disease got out of hand in the 1990s, had some advice: don鈥檛 fool yourselves, it can happen to you. He told the department to test a lot more cows than they wanted to.
Now, weeks later, the USDA has decided to take that advice and test hundreds of thousands of cattle rather than just 40,000. That will make at least a few Swiss happy: the company that makes the most popular test kits for mad cow disease is Swiss, and is vying for all that new American business. (It should be noted that Kihm does not work for that company.)
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CONSIDER, in contrast, the plight of the president鈥檚 Council on Bioethics. This is a panel of ethicists, scientists and other assorted smarty-pants whose job is to advise anyone who will listen on biomedical ethics. The president appoints members to the panel, but neither he nor anyone else is under any statutory duty to listen to what they have to say. The council has no authority to enforce its opinions. In fact, the only legal requirement is that it exists.
So you might imagine that when the White House announced late in February that it was replacing two members whose two-year terms had expired, it would hardly be headline news. Not so. Hell hath no fury like a bioethicist scorned.
When the White House was forced to confess that it was not reappointing Elizabeth Blackburn and William May to their posts, the emailed cries of 鈥渇oul!鈥� could be heard around the world. The problem, it seems, is the perception that the new appointees 鈥� Diana Schaub, Peter Lawler and Benjamin Carson 鈥� were chosen because of their sympathy for President Bush鈥檚 views on various topics.
All three newcomers tend to oppose creating cloned embryos for the purposes of harvesting stem cells for therapies. May, and especially Blackburn, support this kind of research. The Bush administration has been outspoken in its opposition to all forms of human cloning, as has the chairman of the ethics council, Leon Kass.
鈥淭he president won鈥檛 hear all sides of the issue,鈥� wailed ethicists. 鈥淗e needs to hear from the people we think he needs to hear from.鈥�
But presidents like to hear from people who agree with them. Call it political necessity. Call it human nature. Call it heavy-handed to stack the deck this way. But it shouldn鈥檛 be surprising 鈥� and besides, who cares who鈥檚 ignored?
