History will cast President Bush in many roles. Some harsh and some kind. One that must figure prominently will be information cop.

Never mind the Homeland Security Act and the new information databases being designed to track our purchases and movements in the name of public safety. President Bush seems bent on limiting information that had, until the current administration, been used to aid in public safety.

Last month, a number of House Democrats, including Rep. Tom Allen, sent a letter to Department of Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson accusing the administration, by alteration and deletion, of “censoring scientific information about condoms it makes available to the public” to appease abstinence-only advocates.

“Information that used to be based on science,” the Democrats have charged, “is being systematically removed from the public when it conflicts with the administration’s political agenda.”

According to the New York Times, a study concluding education about condom use does not lead to earlier or increased sexual activity has been removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site. At the National Cancer Institute, a report that had showed “no association between abortion and breast cancer” has been replaced with a report saying the association is inconclusive.

In each case, the message more closely resembles the Bush administration’s moral stand.

Whether we – as individuals or a society – favor abstinence-only education or support abortion doesn’t matter. What matters is that studies, once solid enough to be posted online and offered as a tool for public education, are being erased.

The CDC and the National Cancer Institute defend their actions, saying that the older studies were merely replaced in favor of new information. Why limit exposure, though?

Scientists are going to disagree, and studies can be interpreted many ways.

The Web is vast; there is room for many competing views to be aired. If new studies are available they should be posted, but posted alongside other studies so people have all available information and can make educated decisions based on their own ideology and experiences.


$erving Maine
Before Gov. King left office, he directed governmental departments to meet strict budget guidelines to help ease the state’s budget crisis. One of the cost-cutting suggestions was to close five of seven veterans’ services offices.

Hundreds of veterans have complained about the proposal and Gov. John Baldacci doesn’t support the move.

Strategies are now being formulated to prevent the closures, even though they were never really on the chopping block. It was just a proposal.

This tiny budget scrap is a suggestion of what looms ahead.

In order to close an estimated $1 billion budget gap, services are going to get cut. Not everyone will like it, and many of us will complain bitterly, but there is simply not enough money to maintain all services.

When lawmakers get Baldacci’s biennial budget next month, including proposed cuts, they cannot salvage programs based on the loudest and most strident complaints. This is going to be a tough legislative session. But the end goal is to serve all of Maine, not just organized special interest groups.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com

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