SCIENCE / MEDICINE : COMMENTARY : Science, Bush: A Bittersweet Relationship
With sufficient time having passed for the science establishment to have settled into familiarity with the Bush Administration, our verdict is that science has got itself a bitter-sweet relationship, mostly sweet.
The President, who puts exceptional effort into being liked, has been especially attentive to two of the basic cravings of science in its dealings with government: money and recognition. The budgets that Bush has proposed for research are generous by recent standards, though inevitably insufficient to satisfy the boundless ambitions of researchers. Still, he has supported the doubling of the National Science Foundation budget, begun the restoration of non-nuclear energy research, and has backed every mega-project on the agenda.
Bush has also been attentive on the ritualistic front, a matter on which the mandarins of science are as sensitive as banana republic generals. He addressed the recent annual meeting of the high temple of science, the National Academy of Sciences. What he mainly delivered was a rehash of shopworn material from speeches and congressional testimony of his science adviser. But the academy folk were nonetheless touched by his presence, mindful that the last presidential visitor was Jimmy Carter, and before that, John F. Kennedy.
In accord with many pleas from the leaders of research, Bush has resurrected the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from the catalepsy into which it lapsed in the final Reagan years. His science adviser, D. Allan Bromley, regularly wows the audiences in his many appearances around Washington.
But even with those positive notes, the halls of science ring with grievances, for besides money and recognition, there’s a third item of consummate importance to science in its dealings with government: autonomy in research. Scientists don’t want dictates on what to research and what not to research. And here the abortion issue has intruded on a major segment of science, biomedical researchers.
The National Institutes of Health has now been leaderless for nearly a year, thanks to the pro-life “litmus test” that repelled the first batch of candidates and chilled the interest of others. A pledge to desist has been given by hardliners responsible for the debacle, Assistant Secretary of Health James O. Mason and his henchmen in the Department of Health and Human Services. But few trust them, and the distrust has been boosted by Mason’s reaffirmation of the ban on federal funds for fetal-tissue research.
Bush has steered clear of public involvement with the fetal-tissue controversy and the ground rules for NIH directorship. And the leaders of science have prudently avoided open criticism of him on these matters, though in private, some are intensely scornful. However, many give Bush the benefit of the doubt, saying he’s got to appease the right.
Otherwise, Bush and science get on very well. Usually depending on where they are situated professionally, some leaders of science feel dissatisfaction, ranging from the intrusion of the abortion issue to the Administration’s heavy splurging on mega-projects while “little science” is gasping. Others are frustrated by the slow pace of change to civilian research and the Administration’s incoherence on the federal role in assisting high-tech industry.
But Bush’s carefully adopted pose of nice-guy, trying-hard-in-difficult-circumstances has won science, as it has the general public. The leaders feel they have a friend in the White House.
