Now that I'm setting up in Minnesota, I'm beginning to see a familiar and disturbing phenomenon -- the conservative power establishment that squelches scientific findings when they conflict with the wishes of key interest groups. This happened in Michigan under the Engler regime when DEQ tried to dismiss evidence of climate change, among other things. It's happened a million times under Bush. And now the Minnesota environmental agency chief tells a scientist who has linked the herbicide atrazine to amphibian deformities not to show up for a keynote speech. Longtime Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Tom Meersman has the story.
STATE CANCELS SPEECH ABOUT FROGS
A scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, was to be keynote speaker at an upcoming conference sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Then state officials learned the topic of his speech: his latest research linking the herbicide atrazine to frog abnormalities.
Now, Prof. Tyrone Hayes has been uninvited -- by order of the agency's commissioner.
Hayes, an endocrinologist who studies how chemicals affect amphibians, won't address the annual environmental conference in February even though his research is of particular interest in the state where schoolchildren discovered frogs with extra legs and other deformities nine years ago.
http://startribune.com/stories/1556/5041489.html
Posted by Dave at October 20, 2004 09:24 AM