UK science faces facilities freeze.

vented the issues around scientific integrity that arose during the oil spill. Some advocates agree that the document is a disappointment. “It was a very long wait for four pages,” says Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), based in Washington DC, which has represented several scientist whistleblowers. “We feel frustrated that this process is horribly off schedule.” Ruch says that several sentences have the potential to make things worse, rather than better, for government scientists. For example, the guidelines say that researchers can speak to the media, provided there has been “appropriate coordination” with public-affairs offices, but they fail to define what is appropriate. They also allow scientists to speak publicly about their “official work” but fail to offer protection for scientists who are judged to have spoken up in their private capacity. “Scientists are free to speak, except when they’re not,” says Ruch. Grifo says that her organization is a little more positive than PEER. She points to sections that unambiguously allow government scientists to serve on the boards of scientific societies and journals, to present findings at scientific conferences and to accept awards and honours for the science they do. These are major issues, she adds, because the UCS has heard from government scientists who have been prevented from doing these things in the past because of a perceived conflict of interest. But she agrees with Ruch that the media policy lacks specificity, and also argues that the guidelines should have taken a stronger position against scientists with financial conflicts of interest serving as advisers to the government. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, who became well known for speaking out publicly about censorship of his scientific work by NASA press offices during the Bush administration, says that the new policy does not change either of what he sees as two central problems; the use of political appointees to run public-affairs offices, and the requirement that the White House screen testimonies that scientists make to Congress. “A democracy cannot function well with the present approach,” he says. ■ F u n D i n g