Criticism
Critics have stated a lack of confidence in the PACHA and note that the Council, as reorganized under President Bush, held only two meetings in 2002 and issued only five recommendations to the White House. By comparison, the Watkins Commission submitted 597 recommendations to the Reagan Administration.
The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in February 2004 entitled Scientific Integrity in Policymaking claiming, among other accusations, that President Bush intentionally appointed under-qualified individuals to the PACHA as part of a massive effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of expert advice while controlling the advice given.
An example of such a questioned PACHA appointment is Dr. Joseph McIlhaney, a Texas-based doctor known for his published beliefs rejecting the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and his continued advocacy of abstinence-only programs despite negligible evidence that they actually reduce pregnancy rates among young people.
Read more about this topic: Presidential Advisory Council On HIV/AIDS
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)