Monday, May 08, 2006

Should the CDC be a political tool?

In another move to make every agency in the US government suspect to the American people, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) were forced to remove two members form a recent federal panel on sexually transmitted diseases and replace them with two unvetted abstinence-only proponents.

Why? Because the panel was to focus on the failure of abstience until marriage programs. In fact one of the two panel members who were replaced was "going to talk about how abstinence programs were tied to rising STD rates." But there were no representatives on the panel to talk about how wonderful the abstinence only program is. Republicans didn't like that.

In, what may the best example of the Republican and the Bush Administration's not wanting to hear anything that in at odds with their policies, their thinking, their world view, no matter how damaging their policies are to the people of this country and to truth and trust in general, Sen. Tom Coburn's, (R-Okla.) spokesman John Hart "questioned why the CDC would present data that contradict the administration's policy."

Well, because it's the truth!

Not all of us think that government should be run by sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "la la la la la la la la la -- I'm not listening --- la la la la la la la la la," when given information you don't like. Aparently Republicans do.

So here you have it, another governmental agency that has been bent to poilitics. We no longer trust FEMA, EPA, Dept of Education, etc. etc., because they are now political tools for the Republicans and the White House. So too, it seems, is the CDC under Pres. Bush.

Is this an agency that you really want the American people to question and disregard as a political tool? Do you want the American people to ignore the CDC, espeically with a possible pandemic of H5N1 (Avian Flu) is expected to hit the US very soon?


See also:
Americablog (hat tip)
Huffington Post
Centre Daily

2 comments:

Samurai Sam said...

This is all part and parcel of the Republican gospel concerning how ineffectual "big government" programs are. The Republicans continue to place unqualified ideologues in sensative government positions, thus making a self-fulfilling prophecy of government being ineffective. Republicans govern the country terribly, and then blame the institution of government for Republican failures.

This abstinence only rhetric is garbage anyway. Do these gasbags not remember what it was like to be young?

Clytemnestra said...

No Samuri,

Those memories are lost when someone hits you about the head with the Bible 24 billion times. :-)