The White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made changes to a report from the National Academy of Sciences on the toxicology of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, White House staff made editorial interventions in the report, which was commissioned by Congress to establish the science on the risks associated with mercury. The White House's alterations downplayed the risks of mercury, replaced specific enumerations of mercury-related harms with bland, general

John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a detailed rebuttal to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that accuses the administration of manipulating scientific information for political purposes.

On Feb. 27, President Bush dismissed two handpicked members of his Council on Bioethics who had publicly supported human embryonic stem cell research -- which the president opposes -- and replaced them with three members who can be counted on to fall in line. The two dismissed members include Elizabeth Blackburn, a renowned biologist at the University of California at San Francisco, and William May, a highly respected emeritus professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University. In their place, the president appointed:

The Chemical Products Corporation (CPC) submitted a data quality petition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Department of Health and Human Services November 15, 2002, challenging a draft technical report on the toxicology and carcinogenesis of Anthraquinone. CPC previously submitted a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency regarding barium under the Data Quality Act. CPC manufactures anthraquinone for use by the paper industry as an intermediate chemical in the production of dyes and other organics. Request for Correction