for anyone who was watching the argument about bush's "facts don't matter!" policy towards science and scientists on an earlier post comes this information, via kevin drum:

The Bush administration has ordered that government scientists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization, the leading international health and science agency.

...."No one knows better than HHS who the experts are and who can provide the most up-to-date and expert advice," [HHS spokesman Tony] Jewell said. "The World Health Organization does not know the best people to talk to, but HHS knows."

sure, maybe hhs is supremely better and more knowledgeable than the WHO. but, as drum notes, later on in the LA times article comes this point:

WHO panels sometimes have disagreed with positions taken by the administration. A WHO panel met in Lyons, France, this month and declared formaldehyde a known carcinogen — relying on studies that Bush administration political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency had rejected as inconclusive.

Voting members of the panel included scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health who had been authors of the studies.

there's also this quote:

"I do not feel this is an appropriate or constructive thing to do," said Dr. D.A. Henderson, an epidemiologist who ran the Bush administration's Office of Public Health Preparedness and now acts as an official advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "In the scientific world, we have a generally open process. We deal with science as science. I am unaware of such clearance ever having been required before."

Henderson worked for the WHO for 11 years directing its smallpox eradication program. He said he could not recall having to go through government bureaucrats to invite scientists to participate in expert panels, except in the case of small Eastern European countries. In 2002, Henderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was praised by Bush as "a great general in mankind's war against disease."

there is an objective scientific knowledge and process that exists outside of political guidelines. but looking at the bush administration's actions, you wouldn't know it. it's like we're in some sort of bizarre scientific middle ages, where science is science only if the president says so.