Two in the News

Agencies which had political appointees with little or no experience - here are only two, currently in the news.

Health and Human Services

Bush appointee Eric Keroack has just resigned.

The head of the federal office responsible for providing women with access to contraceptives and counseling to prevent pregnancy resigned unexpectedly Thursday after Medicaid officials took action against him in Massachusetts.

The Health and Human Services Department provided no details about the nature of the Massachusetts action that led to Dr. Eric Keroack's resignation.

Just five months ago, Keroack was chosen by President Bush to oversee HHS' Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget. [...] Keroack had worked for an organization that opposes contraception.

[...]

Keroack's office oversees family planning services provided through the Title X program. Services include screening for breast and cervical cancer, as well as treatment for sexually transmitted disease.

Keroack told his staff in a letter Thursday that he became aware of action being taken against his private medical practice in Massachusetts. He said he immediately hired an attorney to initiate an appeal. He did not elaborate on why the action was taken.

[...]

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called on the Bush administration to appoint as a successor a "medical professional who actually believes in birth control to lead the nation's family-planning program."

  Raw Story article

There's a laugh.

Now, recall what you read above (if you did read above) about the services this federal office supplies, including breast and cervical cancer screening for poor women. It seems that the Women's Health portion of the budget is about as ephemeral as Bush's AIDS budget.

[T]he FDA has decided to hold $1.2 million of that funding (out of a $4 million total) for use elsewhere in the agency.

The Post continued, "Because the remaining $2.8 million has already been spent or allocated for salaries and started projects, the office must effectively halt further operations for the rest of the year, according to a high-level agency official with knowledge of the budget plan."

[...]

The Office of Women's Health is the lead federal agency on gender differences in medicine. It holds health fairs nationwide informing consumers about the latest scientific information available on how pharmaceuticals, surgery and other treatments affect women and men differently. More important, it oversees a variety of important pharmaceutical and surgical research on osteoporosis, menopause and reproductive health. If the office were to shut down for the rest of the fiscal year (which ends in October) all those efforts would come to a sorry halt, and women consumers (and the men who love them) would be the worse for it.

  Seattle Post Intelligencer article

When the complaints were being voiced about Keroack's appointment, an HHS spokesmodel claimed that, in his private practice, Keroack prescribed contraceptives. Conflicted? (Or maybe he prescribed them for the women in his own family.)

Just for the halibut....I ran across this comment on the Think Progress website discussing Keroack's resignation.

How many problems in our current society (or even just Africa) would be instantly solved if everyone waited until marriage to experience God’s gift of sex?

Comment by Jake — March 29, 2007 @ 10:16 pm

Maybe he was seriously asking for a number. Anybody? But I don't know how to excuse him for that Africa comment. Actually, I'm not even sure why he felt it necessary to throw that in.

Aaaaaaanyway...

Environmental Protection, Bush Style

The Justice Department is far from the only government agency troubled by politicization under the Bush administration. All you have to do is spin the wheel.

So today, it's the Fish and Wildlife Service! And at the center of it is one Julie A. MacDonald, appointed by Bush to be the deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks at the Interior Department. The very ugly details of her malfeasance have been exposed by an inspector general report. (Update: MacDonald, by the way, has a degree is in civil engineering and has no formal educational background in natural sciences.)

[...]

Here's how she works: MacDonald just made stuff up. If scientists recommended a certain action, MacDonald would alter the recommendation or simply ignore it if it threatened industry or landowners in any way.

Some examples of her scientific method:

MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a "nesting range" of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a "running battle" with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.

[...]

The Interior Department's Inspector General has referred the case to Interior's top officials for "potential administrative action." We'll see if she gets a scolding or a pat on the head.

  TPM Muckraker article

Any bets?