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September 27, 2005
Building government incapacity
by Sylvia S Tognetti
When Reagan came into office, some of the more insidious things his administration did to incapacitate the government now seem quaint. Among those, was cutting maintenance contracts for photocopy machines - or so I was told by OSHA and EPA employees at the time. It may be difficult for some to remember the importance of a photocopier in the pre-online and pre- computer printer era - i..e, the 1980s. What was really quaint was the barter system - since the Department of Interior and perhaps other agencies were not set up to handle cash, outside researchers had to bring reams of paper in exchange for copying privileges - but I digress. At least those libraries were there, and often carried journals and old reports that could be found nowhere else. These are often essential for understanding how particular policies have come to be in the first place, and the scientific or other evidence that justified them. Currently, at least some conscientious government employees use online access to journals to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and find the evidence needed to support new policies when these are needed. Without them, they would simply not be able to do their job of protecting public health and safety.
Now those libraries may soon disappear as well. One of my reliable sources just informed me that, at the Department of Health and Human Services, online access to journals is being terminated this week, and the physical collection of books is being spread around to the various departments. Is this an isolated case? Or is it happening in other agencies? I would be interested in hearing from people who work in other agencies who know anything about this.
IMHO, if the current administration does not believe that protecting public health and safety is a proper role for government, they should have a debate about that rather than silently undermining scientific capacity needed to do so.
Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at September 27, 2005 3:21 PM
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