Fear of Repercussions

    

Fearful U.S. scientists censor research
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Some U.S. scientists are thinking twice about doing or reporting certain research, reacting to political and social controversy in addition to legal restrictions.

"It appears that controversy shapes what scientists choose to study and how they choose to study it and we need to look a little bit more closely at the effects it might be having," said Joanna Kempner, a researcher at the University of Michigan.
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Formal limits include such things as the ban on U.S. government funding for most research on embryonic stem cells and restrictions on research involving humans.

In many cases, too, scientific journals have their own rules, such as refusing to publish material they think might be detrimental to U.S. national security.

But there also are fears about the ire of interest groups, such as opponents of animal testing, or about how a project would be perceived by the public.
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"On the one hand, you want a profession to have norms and to have some standards and some self-regulation. On the other hand, you don't want there to be an environment of fear of repercussions if they do something which they think is legitimate," said Johnson, who has studied similar issues but was not part of Kempner's group.

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