18 Oct 2011 Government Run Healthcare Skews Science

First, it was just a good, but hypothetical argument against the government’s increasing role in paying for healthcare. Now, the argument that it will skew scientific decision-making is having real-world impact on a process that should be driven by sicence.  As Dr. Henry I. Miller of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and I explain in a piece for Forbes.com,

Policy making at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in disarray. Faced with the question of whether to add a meningitis vaccine to the schedule of vaccines routinely recommended for infants, officials at the CDC are asking the wrong questions to the wrong people, and in a non-transparent way.

We tell a story that until now hasn’t been told. Based on an in-depth interview with CDC officials, we discuss  the agency’s bizarre decision-making dance, which includes tax-payer funded quasi-public listening sessions, purportedly meant to help the agency answer a scientific question.

Please read the full piece here.