The
President’s
Unfinished
Promise:
The
Federal
Government
Still
Lacks a
Meaningful
Scientific
Integrity
Policy
1/20/2016
Updated Feb
26,
2016,
Huffington
Post
by
Dr.
Corey
Goodman
(Dr.
Corey
Goodman
is
an
elected
member
of
the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
biotech
entrepreneur
and
venture
capitalist,
and
retired
University
of
California
at
Berkeley
biology
professor.
Over
the
past
several
decades,
he
has
played
a
variety
of
key
roles
at
the
federal
and
state
level
at
the
interface
of
science
and
public
policy.)
It has
been
common
for
scientists,
including
me, to
criticize
previous
federal
administrations
for
condoning
scientific
misconduct
when it
comes to
denying
climate
change
or
ignoring
environmental
concerns.
So when,
in April
2009,
President
Obama
told the
National
Academy
of
Sciences
“we
are
restoring
science
to its
rightful
place“,
and “the
days of
science
taking a
back
seat to
ideology
are over,”
the
scientists
in the
audience,
including
me, gave
him a
standing
ovation.
The
president
then
instructed
his
science
advisor
Dr. John
Holdren,
Director
of the
White
House
Office
of
Science
and
Technology
Policy (OSTP),
to issue
uniform
guidelines
for a
strong
federal
scientific
integrity
policy
within
three
months.
But
nearly
seven
years
later,
there is
still no
meaningful
federal
scientific
integrity
policy,
and
parts of
the
Obama
administration
have
continued
to
misuse
science
to
support
ideology.
The next
administration
can, and
should,
do
better.
It took
OSTP
more
than 18
months
to issue
feeble
guidelines
that
gave
individual
federal
agencies
complete
discretion
to
develop
their
own
policies.
How
effective
are
those
individual
policies?
The
answer
is that
the
policies
vary
from
strong
to very
weak.
For
example,
at the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
(HHS)
that
oversees
the
National
Institutes
of
Health (NIH),
there is
a strong
policy
administered
by the
Office
of
Research
Integrity.
In
contrast,
as shown
here, at
the
Department
of the
Interior,
there is
a weak
policy
that in
practice
has so
little
substance
as to be
meaningless.
The
Department
of
Justice,
in
defending
Interior’s
decisions,
is no
better.
Here I
present
two
striking
examples.
The
common
theme in
both
examples
is that
someone
at the
top
(e.g.,
the
Director
of the
National
Park
Service
or the
Secretary
of
Interior)
made
their
wishes
clearly
known
about
the
outcome
they
desired
before
their
agency
embarked
on what
should
have
been an
unbiased
science-driven
environmental
impact
statement
(EIS).
In both
cases,
the EIS
came to
the
boss’
desired
outcome
(no
surprise),
even if
it
required
fabricating,
falsifying,
or
ignoring
scientific
data.
With a
weak
scientific
integrity
policy,
formal
complaints
led to
cover-ups
and
meaningless
investigations.
In spite
of the
President’s
lofty
words,
it has
been
business
as usual
at the
Departments
of
Interior
and
Justice
with
science
taking a
back
seat to
ideology.
The next
administration
should
learn
from
what has
been
done
right
(e.g.,
HHS) —
and what
hasn’t
(e.g.,
Interior
and
Justice).
Example
#1: The
oyster
farm at
Drakes
Estero
The
first
example
concerns
how both
the
Departments
of
Interior
and
Justice
dealt
with the
so-called
‘oyster
war,’
the
decade-long
battle
between
the
National
Park
Service
(part of
Interior)
and an
80-year-old
oyster
farm,
which
started
at
Drakes
Estero
in Point
Reyes
National
Seashore
and
ended on
the
steps of
the
Supreme
Court.
The
oyster
farm
lost,
and so
did
scientific
integrity.
The
creation
of Point
Reyes
National
Seashore
along
the
coast of
California
in 1962
was a
historic
collaboration
between
environmentalists
and
agriculturalists
in what
should
be a
model
for the
rest of
the park
system -
in which
the
production
of
wholesome
food can
exist in
harmony
with the
protection
of the
environment.
In
recent
years,
however,
the
National
Park
Service,
Sierra
Club,
and
other
environmental
organizations
decided
that
Drakes
Estero
should
be
turned
into a
legally
defined
wilderness
area,
and with
that
change,
that the
oyster
farm
should
go. That
decision
was a
flip-flop
from
what the
same
groups
said
three
decades
earlier.
In 1976,
when
Congress
passed
laws
designating
Drakes
Estero
as “potential
wilderness,”
there
was a
remarkable
consensus
among
the
public -
including
the Park
Service
and
environmental
organizations
- that
the
oyster
farm
should
remain
operating
under
wilderness
designation
in
perpetuity.
The
Sierra
Club,
for
example,
argued
that
Drakes
Estero
could be
put
under
the
Wilderness
Act “even
while
the
oyster
culture
is
continued
- it
will be
a prior
existing,
non-conforming
use.“
The
co-sponsors
of the
legislation,
Sen.
Alan
Cranston,
Sen.
John
Tunney,
and Rep.
John
Burton,
all
agreed
that the
oyster
farm
should
continue.
The
oyster
farm had
a lease
with the
potential
to be
renewed
in
2012.
Once the
Park
Service,
Sierra
Club,
and
others
changed
their
minds
and
decided
they
wanted
to
remove
the
oyster
farm,
they
presumably
needed a
justification
for
their
flip-flop
- some
new
information
to turn
public
opinion
- and
elected
officials
-
against
the
oyster
farm,
and thus
against
the
permit
renewal.
That new
information
was
so-called
scientific
evidence
of
environmental
harm.
In 2007,
National
Park
Service,
led by
then
West
Regional
Director
Jon
Jarvis
(who in
2009
under
President
Obama
became
NPS
Director),
announced
that the
oyster
farm was
polluting
the
water,
smothering
eelgrass,
harming
fish,
and
degrading
the
estero’s
ecosystem.
Most
alarmingly,
in 2007,
a park
official
who
reported
to
Jarvis
said the
oyster
farm’s
owners
should
be
prosecuted
for
committing
“environmental
felonies“
because
the farm
had
allegedly
caused
an 80
percent
decline
in the
local
population
of
harbor
seals, a
federally
protected
marine
mammal.
These
charges
were
surprising.
Clams,
oysters,
and
other
shellfish
were an
important
part of
the
environment
for
Drakes
Estero,
just as
they
were for
San
Francisco
Bay and
other
coastal
bays and
estuaries
up and
down the
California
coast,
and
around
the
world,
before
most
were
fished
out or
destroyed
by
pollution.
Oysters
actually
provide
environmental
benefits
by
clarifying
water,
which is
why they
are
being
restored
in
projects
around
the
world.
In 2007,
the
National
Park
Service
refused
to
publicly
share
its data
and
analysis
that led
to the
80
percent
decline
claim.
When
Senator
Dianne
Feinstein
intervened,
the
National
Park
Service
reluctantly
made the
data
available,
and we
learned
why the
agency
had
refused
to act
with
transparency.
The data
did not
support
the
Park’s
claim.
Harbor
seals
had
indeed
declined
by 80
percent
at one
subsite—but
that
subsite
was far
from the
oyster
farm, in
what was
already
a
protected
wilderness
area.
The
decline
correlated
with an
increase
in
disturbances
from
wildlife
and
human
park
visitors,
not the
farm.
The
seals
simply
moved to
other
neighboring
sites,
some
actually
closer
to the
oyster
farm, as
the
overall
population
remained
unchanged.
Three
years
later,
in 2010,
the Park
retracted
their 80
percent
decline
claim.
As a
result
of the
park’s
shenanigans,
in 2007
the
oyster
farm
owner
asked
Interior’s
Inspector
General
(IG) to
investigate
potential
misconduct.
In 2008,
the IG
released
its
report.
It found
that the
National
Park
Service
“had
misrepresented
research“
and
wrote
that
while
the park
scientist
“denied
any
intentional
misrepresentation,”
their
investigation
revealed
the park
scientist
was
privy to
information
contrary
to her
characterization
and did
nothing
to
correct
the
misinformation.
The IG
also
determined
that
Interior
lacked a
scientific
integrity
policy.
Around
the same
time in
2007,
Feinstein
asked
the
National
Academy
of
Sciences
to
investigate
the
park’s
claims
and
independently
evaluate
the
data. In
2009,
the
Academy
released
its
report.
While
asserting
that it
would
not
comment
on
potential
misconduct
(i.e.,
whether
misrepresentations
were
intentional
or not),
the
Academy
found
the
National
Park
Service
had “selectively
presented,
overinterpreted,
or
misinterpreted“
the
available
data,
and
concluded
that, at
Drakes
Estero,
“there
is a
lack of
strong
scientific
evidence
that
shellfish
farming
has
major
adverse
ecological
effects.”
By 2010,
the
National
Park
Service
had
retracted
most of
the
claims
it had
made
against
the
oyster
farm in
2006 and
2007. In
early
2011,
the
Solicitor’s
Office
of the
Department
of the
Interior
concluded
that
park
officials
and
scientists
had
shown “bias,”
“advocacy,”
a “troubling
mind-set,”
and that
five
employees
had “violated[the
National
Park
Service] Code
of
Scientific
and
Scholarly
Conduct.”
With the
retraction
of the
false
claims
and
rebukes
by the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
Interior’s
Inspector
General,
and
Interior’s
own
lawyers,
there
was
reason
to hope
that the
park
would
end its
misuse
of
science.
However,
with the
renewal
of the
oyster
farm’s
operating
permit
coming
up in
2012,
the NPS
embarked
on
preparing
an
environmental
impact
statement
to help
guide
the
Secretary’s
decision
of
whether
to renew
the
farm’s
permit.
While
preparing
the EIS,
the
National
Park
Service
doubled
down,
putting
out
still
more
claims
of
environmental
harm.
The main
evidence
for the
renewed
hardline
policy
was,
again,
harbor
seals.
In 2007,
the
National
Park
Service
initiated
a secret
program,
with
cameras
hidden
in dense
brush,
to
gather
digital
photographs
of seals
and
oyster
boats,
every
minute
of the
day
during
pupping
season
for more
than
three
years—for
a total
of more
than
300,000
photographs.
The
Academy
had
asked
NPS for
all of
its
data,
and even
went so
far as
to write
that
resolving
the
controversy
“...
would
require
a data
collection
system
that
could be
independently
verified,
such as
time and
date
stamped
photographs,”
yet park
officials
and
scientist
failed
to
disclose
the
existence
of their
ongoing
data
collection
and
analysis.
The
secret
cameras
and the
park’s
analysis
of the
photographs
were
uncovered
in 2010,
based on
a leaked
government
document,
followed
by a
Freedom
of
Information
Act
request.
The
detailed
National
Park
Service
logs of
those
photos
revealed
no
disturbances
to the
seals by
the
oyster
farm.
But the
National
Park
Service
was
determined
to find
disturbances
in those
photos,
so in
2012, as
it was
preparing
its
final
EIS, and
with the
help of
the U.S.
Geological
Survey
(USGS,
another
branch
of
Interior),
it asked
one of
the
world’s
foremost
marine
mammal
behavior
experts,
Dr.
Brent
Stewart
of Hubbs
SeaWorld
Research
Institute,
to
re-analyze
the
enormous
cache of
photographs.
In
Stewart’s
May 2012
report,
he found
“no
evidence
of
disturbance“
of seals
by
oyster
boats.
This
should
have
finally
put the
issue to
rest.
But it
didn’t.
In
November
2012,
the
National
Park
Service
released
its
environmental
impact
statement
on the
oyster
farm. It
concluded
that the
oyster
farm had
a
significant
“adverse
impact“
on
harbor
seals.
Stewart’s
finding
of “no
evidence
of
disturbance“
was
doctored
into a
false
finding
of
causation
of
disturbances,
a clear
case of
scientific
misconduct.
Stewart
protested
to
Interior
that he
was
misquoted,
but
Interior
refused
to
change
its
report.
A week
later,
Interior
Secretary
Ken
Salazar
ruled
against
the
oyster
farm’s
permit
renewal,
citing,
in part,
the
conclusions
about
environmental
harm in
the
environmental
impact
statement.
(He also
cited
the
false
claim
that the
Wilderness
Act
required
the
oyster
farm to
go.)
The
Department
of the
Interior
implemented
a
scientific
integrity
policy
in 2011
in
response
to the
President’s
promise.
Interior’s
policy -
if it
had
teeth -
should
have
prevented
this
whole
mess,
but it
did not:
Interior
officials
and
scientists
knew the
conclusion
that NPS
Director
Jarvis
wanted
from the
EIS in
order to
convince
the
Secretary
to
remove
the
oyster
farm,
and they
appeared
willing
to
change
Stewart’s
findings
to
achieve
that
outcome.
Emails
obtained
by FOIA
revealed
the
importance
of
Stewart’s
analysis
to what
NPS
wanted
to
present
to
Salazar
for his
decision.
For
example,
a USGS
official
wrote in
February
2012: “the
NPS
needs
this
analysis
done by
the end
of March
to brief
Secretary
Salazar
who
needs to
make a
decision
on
Wilderness
Status
for the
park.”
“This
is a
high
profile
project.“
Shortly
before
Stewart
submitted
his
analysis
in early
May
2012,
another
USGS
official
wrote to
him: “NPS
is
chomping
at the
bit
(they’ve
got
deadlines
for
deciding
on the
permit)“
and then
again a
few days
later “NPS
will be
breathing
down my
neck
this
week,
when do
you
think
you’ll
be able
to
transmit
something?“
My own
involvement
in this
issue
began
back in
2007
when the
President
of the
county
board of
supervisors
contacted
me and
asked
for my
help in
evaluating
the
National
Park
Service
science
vs.
their
claims.
The
county
official
knew me
as a
local
resident,
University
of
California
Berkeley
biology
professor,
elected
member
of the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
and
someone
who had
been
involved
at the
interface
of
science
and
public
policy
(i.e.,
in my
prior
role as
Chair of
the
National
Research
Council’s
Board on
Life
Sciences).
I was
distressed
by what
I
uncovered
- a
repeated
pattern
of
dishonest
science
used by
the
National
Park
Service
against
the
oyster
farm. As
a result
of that
discovery,
I have
been at
the
center
of many
of the
investigations
of false
science.
For
example,
I was
the
person
who
discovered
the
secret
cameras,
photos,
and
logs,
and the
person
who
discovered
that
Interior
had
altered
Stewart’s
findings.
In
December
2012, I
alerted
then-USGS
Director
Dr.
Marcia
McNutt
(currently
Editor
of
Science
Magazine
and
soon-to-be
President
of the
National
Academy
of
Sciences)
to the
misrepresentation
of
Stewart’s
report
since it
involved
USGS
officials.
She
agreed
the
misrepresentation
was
serious,
and said
she
would
instruct
her
Scientific
Integrity
Officer
to open
an
investigation.
After
many
months,
and with
no
response
to
repeated
emails
to
McNutt
or her
Scientific
Integrity
Officer,
I filed
a formal
scientific
misconduct
complaint
in May
2013
with the
Secretary
of the
Interior.
Pro bono
lawyers
representing
the
oyster
farm
filed
suit in
December
2012
asking a
federal
court to
reverse
the
Salazar’s
decision
to close
down the
farm,
claiming
the
decision
had been
informed
by false
science.
The
Department
of
Justice
represented
the
Department
of
Interior
in
court.
Justice
has its
own
Scientific
Integrity
Policy.
The
policy
states
that
Justice
is “entrusted
with
awesome
responsibilities
and ...
must
pursue,
rely
upon and
present
evidence
that is
well-founded
in fact
and
veracity.”
The
policy
requires
that “When
science
...
forms
the
basis
for the
Department’s
[position],
it is
vital
that the
information
relied
upon be
credible.”
Department
of
Justice
lawyers
violated
these
lofty
principles
in court
while
defending
the
Interior
secretary’s
decision.
Even
though
they had
been
alerted
by my
court
filings
that the
environmental
impact
statement
misrepresented
Stewart’s
finding,
government
lawyers
continued
to cite
its
claim
that the
farm
causes
adverse
impacts
on
harbor
seals.
Both
agencies
-
Interior
and
Justice
-
continued
to cite
the
environmental
impact
statement
as if it
were
fact,
right up
to the
steps of
the
Supreme
Court.
In June
2014,
the
Supreme
Court
denied
the
oyster
farm’s
petition
for a
hearing.
Months
later,
the
oyster
farm was
gone.
What
happened
to the
year-old
scientific
misconduct
complaint
that I
formally
filed
with
Interior
in May
2013? It
took
Interior
over
eight
months
to
interview
the key
witness,
Dr.
Stewart,
as to
whether
his
scientific
report
and
conclusions
had been
altered
by USGS
and NPS
officials
(Stewart
was
never
asked
the key
question).
In
November
2014,
five
months
after
the
Department
of the
Interior
won the
court
battle,
the USGS
Scientific
Integrity
Officer,
Alan
Thornhill,
sent me
a
two-sentence
dismissal
to my
164-page
misconduct
complaint.
He
wrote: “...
we did
not find
misconduct
or a
loss of
scientific
integrity
and the
case is
dismissed.”
In
Thornhill’s
very
brief
decision
posted
on
Interior’s
web
site, he
concluded
that
USGS and
NPS
officials
were
following
“standard
practices,”
as if to
say it
is not
misconduct
to
intentionally
misrepresent
scientific
reports
since
Interior
officials
do it
all the
time
(you’ll
see
Interior
use this
defense
in #2
below).
In
dismissing
the
case,
Thornhill
never
denied
that
USGS and
NPS
officials
misrepresented
Stewart’s
report.
Moreover,
he never
acknowledged
that he
had
indeed
interviewed
Stewart
in
writing,
and that
Stewart
had not
contradicted
anything
I had
written
in my
complaint.
Thornhill
also
ignored
Interior’s
definition
of
scientific
misconduct
involving
“intentionally,
knowingly,
or
recklessly“
misrepresenting
the
facts.
USGS and
NPS
officials
remained
silent
on the
misrepresentation
of
Stewart’s
analysis,
did not
correct
their
errors,
and did
not stop
Justice
from
repeating
the
errors
in
federal
court.
In
January
2015,
Michael
Ames
published
a story
in
Newsweek
that
included
the
first
public
interview
with
Stewart
on this
issue.
Ames
wrote: “On
May 3,
2012,
Stewart
filed
his
reports,
determining
there
were no
disturbances
attributable
to the
oyster
farm’s
boats.
But when
the USGS
published
its
final
report
that
November,
Stewart
discovered
that his
findings
had been
altered
and that
the
study
reached
conclusions
his
research
directly
contradicted.
‘It’s
clear
that
what I
provided
to them
and what
they
produced
were
different
conclusions
and
different
values,’
says
Stewart.
‘In
science,
you
shouldn’t
do
that.’“
But NPS
and USGS
officials
and
scientists
did just
that,
and they
got away
with it.
Example
#2: The
Klamath
River
dams
Water
use in
the
Klamath
Basin in
Oregon
and
California
has been
a source
of
conflict
between
tribes,
farmers,
environmentalists,
a power
company,
and the
governments
for
decades.
In 2002,
many
blamed a
massive
Chinook
salmon
kill on
an
allegedly
politically
motivated
decision
by
Interior
and then
Vice
President
Dick
Cheney
to
divert
water to
farmers
rather
than to
in-stream
flows. A
2004
National
Academy
of
Sciences
report
complicated
the
picture
by
concluding
that
poor
water
quality,
rather
than low
in-stream
flows,
was the
main
risk to
threatened
and
endangered
species.
When the
Obama
administration
came
into
office,
it began
considering
a
billion-dollar
project
to
remove
four
dams on
the
Klamath
River.
There
was
never
much
doubt
about
the
outcome:
in 2009,
Interior
Secretary
Salazar
said
that the
proposal
to
remove
the dams
“will
not
fail.“
In April
2011,
the
Bureau
of
Reclamation
(an
agency
within
Interior)
hired
Dr. Paul
Houser
as its
Science
Advisor
and
Scientific
Integrity
Officer—a
position
created
after
Interior
released
its
scientific
integrity
policy
in
January
2011
(Houser
is today
professor
of
hydrometeorology
at
George
Mason
University).
In
September
2011,
Interior
released
a draft
EIS for
the dam
removal
project.
Houser
complained
to his
superiors
that the
draft
EIS and
its
accompanying
press
release
misrepresented
the
science
panel
report
on the
dam
removal
project,
emphasizing
the
positive
benefits
without
the
uncertainties
or
negatives.
In
February
2012,
just one
month
before
Interior
Secretary
Salazar
was
scheduled
to
formally
make his
decision,
Dr.
Houser
was
terminated.
He
believed
this was
retaliatory
and
intended
to
prevent
him from
investigating
whether
the
final
EIS was
also
tainted
by
scientific
misconduct.
In
response,
he filed
a
whistleblower
complaint
with
Interior’s
Inspector
General
as well
as a
scientific
misconduct
complaint
with
Interior’s
Scientific
Integrity
Officer.
In March
2013,
Interior
released
a report
on
Houser’s
scientific
integrity
complaint.
The
report
was
written
by an
outside
consultant
whose
main
client
is
Interior.
The
consultant
was not
asked to
investigate
Houser’s
actual
complaint,
but
rather
was
given a
set of
questions
written
by
Interior,
and not
allowed
to
interview
witnesses.
The
report
dismissed
the
charge
of “misconduct“
as “normal
practice,”
and
Interior’s
Scientific
Integrity
Officer,
who
reports
to the
Secretary
of
Interior,
agreed.
In May
2013,
the
House of
Representatives
Committee
on
Natural
Resources
released
a report
on
Interior’s
Inspector
General,
highlighting
the
Klamath
River
scientific
integrity
complaint
because
of what
the
Committee
concluded
were
failures
of both
Interior
and
Interior’s
Inspector
General.
The
House
Committee
reported
that an
IG
investigator
thought
it
likely
that
Houser
was
terminated
because
Interior
disagreed
with his
scientific
analysis.
The
investigators
thought
the
reasons
cited by
Interior
for
termination
were “trivial.”
Still,
Houser
was not
reinstated,
and his
whistleblower
and
misconduct
complaints
were
quietly
dismissed.
In 2012,
Kate
Sheppard
published
a story
on
Houser’s
case in
Mother
Jones.
Sheppard
wrote: “Advocates
for
transparency
and good
science
within
government
agencies
point
out the
apparent
irony in
firing a
guy
hired to
enforce
scientific
integrity
for his
attempts
to do
just
that. “I
have to
say,
this
doesn’t
smell
right,”
said
Francesca
T.
Grifo,
director
of the
Scientific
Integrity
Program
at the
Union of
Concerned
Scientists,
an
environmental
group
that has
been
following
the
implementation
of
scientific
integrity
policy
closely.
“Interior
is
struggling
to
figure
out what
this
policy
means,”
she
added,
and has
had
difficulty
implementing
it.
“[That]
leaves
giant
holes
that
politics
can
drive
through.”
Conclusions
These
two
examples
show
that
despite
the
President’s
promise
to
restore
science
to its
rightful
place,
it has
been
business
as usual
in parts
of his
administration,
with
certain
Federal
agencies
misusing
science
to
support
their
ideology.
What
have we
learned
about
the
scientific
integrity
policies
in
different
federal
agencies?
Certain
agencies,
such as
HHS,
have a
strong
policy,
whereas
others,
such as
Interior,
have a
very
weak
one.
First,
Interior’s
policy
provides
no
transparency,
timeliness,
and
truly
independent
review.
Second,
it fails
to deal
with
agency
conflicts
of
interest.
Third,
it has
no
requirement
to
correct
egregious
errors.
And
fourth,
it
provides
no
accountability
- no way
to
appeal
decisions
either
administratively
or in
the
courts.
Our
country
needs a
single
uniform
scientific
misconduct
policy
that
applies
to all
federal
agencies,
not a
series
of
individual
policies
that
allow
some
agencies
to
continue
to
misuse
science.
Here are
some key
elements
of what
should
be
included.
• Create
a
uniform
policy.
The
White
House
should
issue a
single
uniform
policy.
The
policy
should
be in
the form
of an
Executive
Order,
binding
on all
federal
agencies.
The
scientific
community
has
waited
patiently
for over
thirty
years:
it is
time for
a
unified
federal
policy
with
some
teeth.
• Don’t
allow
exemptions.
The
federal
policy
should
apply to
all
branches
of
government.
For
example,
Inspector
General
offices
believe
the
policy
does not
apply to
them. No
agency
should
be
exempted
from
being
held
accountable
for
scientific
misconduct.
•
Conduct
truly
independent
investigations.
Allegations
of
scientific
misconduct
should
be
investigated
by an
office
or
agency
that is
truly
independent
of the
agency
accused
of the
misconduct.
Independent
investigators
should
be
charged
with
investigating
the
allegations
no
matter
where it
takes
them,
who they
need to
interview,
or what
documents
they
need to
demand.
The
results
of
investigations
should
be
publicly
released
with a
complete
analysis.
If
investigations
are not
independent,
then
conflicts
of
interest
can
develop.
So long
as (i)
high-ranking
officials
pressing
predetermined
agendas
have
power
over the
investigators,
(ii)
outside
consultants
overseeing
investigations
have
financial
ties
with
those
agencies,
or (iii)
investigators
are
controlled
by
pre-filtered
questions,
then
truly
independent
review
will
never be
accomplished.
• Pursue
cases in
a timely
fashion.
Investigations
should
be
conducted
in a
timely
manner,
with the
goal
that
each
case
should
be
resolved
within
six
months.
The
current
situation,
in which
an
agency
can
stonewall
for more
than a
year
simply
deciding
whether
to
conduct
an
investigation,
is
unacceptable.
•
Implement
true
whistleblower
protections.
Whistleblowers
need
actual
protection.
As Jeff
Ruch,
Director
of
Public
Employees
for
Environmental
Responsibility
commented
on
Houser’s
case
(i.e.,
the
Klamath
River
dams) as
published
in
Greenwire
in 2013:
“If
Interior’s
own
Scientific
Integrity
Officers
are not
shielded
from
reprisal
for
doing
their
jobs,
how in
heaven’s
name
could
one
expect a
staff
scientist
to push
back
against
political
shenanigans?“
• Admit
and
correct
errors.
When
egregious
scientific
errors
are
discovered,
agencies
should
be
required
to
correct
them,
including
retracting
papers
and
reports.
The days
of
agency
directors
refusing
to
correct
false
science,
or
government
lawyers
presenting
false
science
in
federal
court as
if it is
fact,
has to
come to
an end.
• Ensure
accountability.
Persons
responsible
for
violating
the
scientific
integrity
policy—or
encouraging
such
violations—should
be held
accountable.
Good
science
is too
important
to our
democracy
for
misconduct
to be
rewarded
with
promotions.
Investigators
who find
misconduct
should
recommend
appropriate
actions
to
inform
the
public
and
remediate
any
injuries
caused
by the
misconduct.
President
Obama is
in his
final
year,
and he
still
has time
to get
this
right.
But
whatever
happens
this
year,
the
scientific
community,
led by
the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
should
demand
that the
next
President
issue a
government-wide
policy
that
assures
that all
federal
agencies
have a
scientific
integrity
policy
as good
as HHS
and NIH.
About
the
Author
Dr.
Corey
Goodman
is an
elected
member
of the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
biotech
entrepreneur
and
venture
capitalist,
and
retired
University
of
California
at
Berkeley
biology
professor.
Over the
past
several
decades,
he has
played a
variety
of key
roles at
the
federal
and
state
level at
the
interface
of
science
and
public
policy.