It took bad poll numbers and a Senate hold on the nomination of the FDA nominee to get Plan B approved for women over 18, but had the FDA followed the scientific evidence, it would have been approved long ago with no age restriction. The obvious reason: the Bush Administration playing politics to appease social conservatives when scientific facts did not fit their agenda.

When it comes to disease prevention, something that isn't (or shouldn't be) tainted with ideology, they wouldn't play politics, would they? I mean, who could possibly be against disease prevention, right?

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that morale continues to decline at the Centers for Disease Control as the administration's appointees implement new systems that threaten the science and public health data coming out of that important governmental agency. Seriously, even those who believe in the most limited government want to trust that the FDA inspects their meats and meds and the CDC has nothing but public health on its mind. Right? But the CDC has been in the midst of the abstinence only debate and has censored public health speakers with views different than the Bush Administration's. Now, scientists there are leaving in droves because of the leadership.

Last week the evidence of problems at the CDC grew so serious that five of six former directors wrote a letter to the current director, Dr. Julie Gerbeding (#12 on Forbes 100 most powerful women list), expressing grave concern that public health and scientific fact were the victims of her reorganization plans for the agency.

The fiasco that was FEMA (reorganized as part of the Department of Homeland Security by Bush) and hurricane Katrina was brought to you by the same administration that now is reorganizing the Centers for Disease Control.

While the administration this week tries to focus voter attention away from the anniversary of Katrina to the anniversary of 9/11, CBS shows that the anti-science approach of the Bush Administration is now causing health problems for those very first-responder heroes as EPA documents were doctored by the White House to downplay the air quality risks at ground zero.

But their dismissal of science is no surprise. The Bush Administration's reluctance to accept what is now scientific fact, global climate change, is legendary and part of a pattern of political interference in scientific inquiry.

Their reluctance to listen to public health experts on preventing HIV/AIDS has been another consistent barometer of the Adminstration's disdain for science and was the subject of much of the conversation at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Any one of these issues is problematic. Taken collectively, the evidence couldn't be more clear – President Bush is jeopardizing the health and safety of many Americans by playing politics with the agencies deisgned to protect them. He may not be on the ballot again, but the people who should be holding the administration accountable through Congressional oversight certainly are, in just eight short weeks. Ask your Senate and Congressional candidates what they think of the Bush record on science and public health in public forums and encourage reporters you know to do the same.