Thursday, October 4, 2007

Risk assessment bulletin scrapped

Two months ago, I posted about more Bush administration conflict with scientists, this time in the form of a bulletin on risk assessment that was being drafted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The National Academy of Sciences had taken a look at the bulletin and thought it should be scrapped. But, as the journal Nature reported in August, the OMB was still toying with the draft bulletin despite the bad review from NAS. Well, the OMB has gotten the message, finally, and scrapped the new bulletin, apparently deciding to update a 1995 document on risk assessment instead. (See the news story in this week's Nature - may be behind pay wall.)