From readers.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Science-Based Policy in an Imperfect World

In an interview in your March/April 2003 issue ("Long Range Forecast"), Robert Watson, former chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said, "I believe that national and international [scientific] assessments should not recommend policy action...an assessment should be policy relevant and policy neutral." I would be interested to know why he believes this. Policy-neutral assessments, although sound in theory, have worked poorly in the United States, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

Neutral assessments from the IPCC land on the desks of U.S. policymakers who are beholden to corporate patrons. As long as scientifically uncertain and neutral reports are pitted against the aggressive advocacy (and often misinformation) of industry, U.S. climate policy will continue to err on the side of recklessness.

Watson's suggestion that scientists advocate policy as individual citizens offers a poor substitute for advocacy rooted in scientific consensus. The history of climate policy reveals that scientists with minority opinions, most of whom are not climate researchers, attract industry funding that gives them the time and support needed to make their minority viewpoints disproportionately heard. (For details consult Ross Gelbspan's The Heat Is On.)

Scientists, not policymakers, are best suited to understand and interpret the possible implications of scientific uncertainty. Moreover, although scientists are not experts on many social issues, they also tend not to labor under the biases weighing upon legislators in today's corporate-dominated political culture.

Advocacy may lead to occasional mistakes by scientific bodies, but it is unlikely that the costs will exceed what we are paying now to protect the notion of scientific neutrality. Until some sort of separation of corporation and state occurs in the United States, scientific bodies should endeavor to make clear recommendations that can hold leaders accountable.

MATTHEW ORR

University of California

College of Natural Resources

The Cheapest Ways to Save African Lives

Regarding the scourge of AIDS in Africa, what is often forgotten is that TB and malaria are as deadly as AIDS. Malaria alone kills as many as 2.7 million people each year, at least as many as AIDS. The numbers for TB are similar. All three diseases impose huge costs on the African economy.

As for treatments, both TB and malaria can be cured by drugs costing...