ambitious_wench

In June 2004, the Bush administration announced that any new scientists participating in the World Health Organization's expert panels must first be approved by a senior political appointee.

WHO—the United Nations' leading international health and science agency, governed by 192 member states—is accustomed to inviting individual scientists to meetings without consulting political bureaucrats. WHO officials in Geneva have so far refused to comply with the request, explaining that the new regulation would politicize their independent panels in which specialists from around the world discuss the latest studies on chemical, biological, industrial, and environmental threats.

Dr. D.A. Henderson, an epidemiologist who ran the Bush administration's Office of Public Health Preparedness and who worked for the WHO for 11 years, said that the only case in which he could remember having to consult with government officials on who should participate in a scientific panel was when dealing with small Eastern European countries.

(Source: Tom Hamburger, "Bush Appointee Must Clear Any Scientist Advising WHO World Health Agency Says Policy Threatens Free, Open Inquiry," Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2004.)