Many people have noticed politicians waging war against science and the truth.
Canada has had it's own approach. In the 80s, we had a government department called the Science Council that kept publishing data showing that Canada provides the least support for science of any industrialized country when calculated in almost any way (per capita, per GNP, etc.) The Conservative government under Brian Mulroney (Ronald Regan's good buddy), solved the problem by disbanding the Science Council. There was no more embarrassing reports about Canada under funding science.
In July, under Paul Martin's Liberal government, three government scientists from Health Canada were fired. In the 90s, they had dared to tell the public that Monsanto's growth hormone was dangerous to human health, forcing the government to withhold approval for its use in Canada. This was followed by years of reprimands and suspensions. The final straw came when two of them had warned that bovine feed practices (feeding cow parts back to cows) was increasing the risk of mad cow disease. A few months later a mad cow was discovered. Instead of congratulating the scientists on correctly warning the government about a situation that was going to cost Canada billions of dollars, the three scientists were fired within two months for insubordination. Nothing is more dangerous to a scientist than telling the truth if that truth embarrasses a politician.
The frightening part is that despite all of the reports in the media, the average voter pays little attention to stories about scientists. One wonders why any scientist would put his or her career on the line to try to protect the lives of people who couldn't care less.
Yours,
Thom