At various stages, the agency's leadership, sometimes after consulting the White House, dictated decisions that ran counter to what its scientists and advisory groups were recommending.
The report only deals with scientists on advisory panels, notes committee member Richard Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
In dealing with senior scientists on advisory boards or in review committees it is important to have scientific credibility to be able to work in a constructive, collegial way.
My team and I have recently recruited several world-renowned scientists to our advisory board.
To the scientists on the advisory committee, whether the pill works by preventing ovulation or implantation was mostly immaterial to the decision about whether it is safe and effective.
Still, the scientists on the advisory panel were persuaded enough by the hormone's relative safety and measurable if modest effects to recommend all-around treatment for the seriously subcompact among us.
"If advisory scientists fail to appreciate the potential ethical, societal, economic or environmental impacts of their recommendations, this can result in their advice being ignored or rejected".
It aims to draw on existing structures such as nation-based academies of prominent scientists, and existing advisory bodies to provide timely, independent advice across all policy areas.
At another end of the spectrum lie professional societies, which are largely independent collectives of scientists that offer advisory opinions to governmental decision-makers on their own initiatives.
To "restore integrity" to government science, the researchers are calling on the White House to issue a new executive order to ensure that scientists appointed to advisory panels have solid qualifications and no serious conflicts of interest.
