President Bush on Friday dismissed two members of his Council on Bioethics, both of whom are "among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells," and replaced them with three new members, the Washington Post reports. Bush in 2001 by executive order created the council -- which is staffed by scholars, scientists, theologians and others -- to "advise [him] on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedical science and technology." Bush recently renewed the commission for another two years (Weiss, Washington Post, 2/28). On Friday, Bush dismissed Elizabeth Blackburn, a cell biologist at the University of California-San Francisco, and William May, a medical ethicist and retired professor at Southern Methodist University. In their places, Bush has appointed Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center; Peter Lawler, chair of the Department of Government and International Studies at Berry College in Georgia; and Diana Schaub, a political science professor at Loyola College in Maryland (AP/Boston Globe 2/29). All three new appointees are "respected members of their fields," and their "writings suggest their tenures will be less contentious than their predecessors'," according to the Post. The Post reports that Carson is a motivational speaker who "often invokes religion and the Bible." In a book review in the Weekly Standard in 2002, Lawler said that if the United States does not soon "'become clear as a nation that abortion is wrong,' then women will eventually be compelled to abort genetically defective babies," the Post reports. Schaub has said that research in which embryos are destroyed is "the evil of the willful destruction of innocent human life," according to the Post (Washington Post, 2/28).

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Bush spokesperson Suzy DeFrancis said that it is the president's "prerogative to make change" in the council, adding that all council members' terms expired in January. "We decided to appoint other people with other expertise and experience," she said (AP/Boston Globe, 2/29). However, Blackburn said she believes she was dismissed from the council because "her political views do not match those of" Bush and council Director Leon Kass, a University of Chicago ethicist, the Post reports. "I think this is Bush stacking the council with the compliant," Blackburn said. Council member Michael Gazzaniga, a Dartmouth neuroscientist, said that he is "upset" by Blackburn's dismissal because she was "one of the basic scientists who understood the biology of many of the issues we're talking about" (Washington Post, 2/28). Elizabeth Marincola, executive director of the American Society for Cell Biology, said that Blackburn and May often were in the minority on the 17-member council. She added that the dismissals are "alarming" because Bush "is trying to ensure the advice he receives is the advice he wants to hear" (AP/Boston Globe, 2/29).

Kerry Criticizes Move
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) said that Bush is "playing politics" with the issue of stem cell research and is "stacking [the council] to better fit his right-wing ideological and religious views," the Boston Herald reports. "Regardless of your opinion (on stem cell research), a scientific panel ought to be chosen on the basis of science and on the basis of reputation, not politics," Kerry said (Straub, Boston Herald, 2/29). He added that in defining "appropriate scientific policy," the United States deserves to have "people whose reputations and abilities are not tarnished and are not focused by politics or religion" (Loven, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/1). "The United States of America ought to be doing stem cell research," Kerry said (AP/Boston Globe, 2/29).