Breathing free

By Ruth SoRelle, M.P.H.

On the same day that President Barack Obama lifted previously imposed limitations on research involving embryonic stem cells, he did something that many in the scientific community considered even more important. He pledged to take the politics out of science.

"Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology," he said, signing a Presidential Memorandum on scientific integrity.

In fact, his memorandum commits to restoring scientific integrity in decisions on government policy. Scientists around the world had called for this, and his commitment was hailed around the world.

Sometimes, what science finds is not in keeping with political goals or agendas. In previous administrations, that lack of convergence has led to editorial changes in scientific white papers and, occasionally, a simple ignoring of scientific findings.

Of course, science can be open to interpretation, and these can also drive policy. Scientists are people, and they often disagree. What they find may at times clash with the established values of others. President Obama, however, points out that we need to try to adhere to the science if we are to succeed in an increasingly complex world.

Setting policy requires objective data, and those are the goals of good science everywhere. In the laboratory, in the clinic, at the bedside, in the Antarctic and the Amazonian jungles as well as the weightless frontier of an orbital space station, scientists seek to define the physical and chemical parameters of our world. We must not only trust what they find, but also the communications that explain those findings to us. A Presidential Memorandum setting out the guidelines of scientific integrity is a good place to start.

The President has assigned the director of the Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy the difficult task of keeping the Executive Branch of government to the straight and narrow where it intersects with the nation's scientists and their world.

The strategy for doing that is as yet undecided. Yet acknowledging the importance of scientific integrity as a basis for many policy decisions is an important first step.