Protecting special interests in the name of "good science".

WITHOUT FANFARE OR DEBATE, A MEMBER OF Congress places a rider on the omnibus appropriations bill enacted at the end of the Clinton Administration in late 2000. A new 2-sentence law, now known as the Data Quality Act (DQA), directs the administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide a potent mechanism for interested parties to change the way government agencies review science. The full impact of the act is as yet unknown, but it has already resulted in the significant delay of the release and use of valid scientific information. This new tool, to date used primarily by those who have reason to silence or politicize objective scientific research, should be cause for great concern and serious examination.