It’s Getting Hot In Here

The White House is at it again, censoring expert testimony on Global Warming. This time the Bush Administration cut out over half of Center for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding’s Senate testimony on the public health effects of climate change.

The White House PR machine first tried to pass the Administration’s edits off as “minor edits.” DeSmogBlog blows away that argument with a comparison between the Gerberding’s original testimony and the final version after the White House got through with it.

The White House cut the original version down from 3,100 words to only 1,500, completely wiping out whole sections on health related effects due to extreme weather, air pollution-related health effect, allergic diseases, water and food-borne infectious diseases, food and water scarcity and the long term impacts of chronic diseases and other health effects.

Then the White House shifted tune, saying that they had removed the sections because they conflicted with findings from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Several Congressional Democrats, including Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair, Barbara Boxer (D-CA), promptly called bull$h!t.

Boxer’s office published a paragraph-by-paragraph comparison of the deleted sections of Dr. Gerberding’s testimony and the IPCC report on how climate change will affect public health.

Needless to say, the comparison reveals striking similarities, not conflicting reports.

According to NewsDay.com:

Both [Dr. Gerberdin and the IPCC] raised virtually identical concerns: heat stress on vulnerable populations; the likelihood of respiratory illnesses from increased air pollution; the spread of waterborne infectious diseases; and more injuries from severe weather events such as wildfires.

Nice try President Bush. What’s the next lie … er … “spin”, you want to put on this story?

[A hat tip to the crew at DeSmogBlog's excellent muckraking.]