Politics First, Research Second?

ice President Al Gore has announced $10 million in federal grants for the creation of eight Centers for the Excellence in Children’s Environmental Health Research. The centers — one of which will be located at the University of Michigan — will supposedly study the link between rising asthma rates among children and environmental pollutants.

    The U.S. government already pumps in huge amounts of money to researchers in almost every field of inquiry. Yet Mr. Gore’s move takes government involvement in universities one step further: It will establish within universities centers dedicated exclusively to a research agenda established by the government.

    Administration officials claim that the centers are necessary to study the sharp increase in childhood asthma in recent years — especially among inner city children. Among children under 5, the rate increased 160 percent from 1980 to 1994, making asthma the No. 1 cause nationally for childhood hospitalization.

    But the very name of the centers bespeaks of their hidden agenda: It suggests that they will proceed on the assumption that environmental factors are the major cause of ill health among children. Yet that may not be the case. Indeed, a U-M study earlier this year reported that among elderly people poverty — not environmental pollution — was the biggest predictor of poor health. Why this finding would not apply to children is hardly obvious.

    Even more revealing is the fact that the centers — each of which will receive more than $1 million for the next five years — will study only the connection between man-made pollutants such as second-hand smoke, pesticides and smog and asthma rates. Why more obvious natural pollutants such as pollen concentrations have been excluded is far from clear.

    Much of the money for the centers will come from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — which is not known for its dedication to truth and honesty in research. Indeed, a federal judge recently blasted the EPA for deliberately relaxing research standards to establish that second-hand smoke caused cancer, something that no independent study has been able to corroborate.

    And syndicated writer Alston Chase, an experienced conservationist, has noted that the EPA does not deal kindly with researchers whose findings contradict its beliefs: For instance, when one National Park Service biologist reported that overly abundant elk were harming critical vegetation in Yellowstone National Park, his research was terminated. And 19 EPA employees wrote the Washington Times to protest that “EPA regulations and enforcement actions are based on poor science (that) stand to harm rather than protect public health and the environment.”

    But even without outright harassment and intimidation, government money perverts research. Scholars dependent on the government dole must necessarily be tempted to produce findings that secure them more grants in future. This results not in debate but conformity. Universities serious about promoting free inquiry should bear this in mind before accepting Uncle Sam’s dubious gift.