Activism's toll: the US Congress must reverse its growing tendency to play the role of peer reviewer

Article Abstract:

Congress's addiction to pork-barrel spending reached new heights of folly with the rise of disease earmarking or the appropriation of research funds targeted at particular illnesses. A recent example was the inclusion of $210 million for breast cancer research in the 1993 defense budget to evade the limits on non-military spending. The danger in this blatantly pandering zeal for medical research in response to the lobbying of activists is that it will divert funds from peer-reviewed but politically valueless research.

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Britain's new chance

Article Abstract:

Britain's newly elected government should move at once to revive the fortunes of British science. Although the naming of William Waldegrave to be science minister was a prudent beginning, further action is imperative if the government's handling of science is to improve. These actions include allowing the research councils to continue functioning but abolishing the unnecessary Advisory Board for the Research Councils and the ineffective Advisory Council on Science and Technology.

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Science-based security under threat

Article Abstract:

Los Alamos National Laboratory is under threat from reformers in Washington DC whose aim is to improve its effectiveness at the expense of its unique, fundamental scientific environment.

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