By Jayla Burton, Program Manager
Breast cancer has become a political issue.
One of the many ways it must be addressed is by ensuring that decisions made by federal agencies are based on scientific evidence free of partisan influence.
When the Biden-Harris administration first took office, you joined us in calling for them to prioritize the breast cancer crisis. We depend on high-quality federal scientific research and the hard work of federal scientists to protect our health and environment. The Scientific Integrity Act will safeguard the rights of scientists working at federal agencies by:
This bill will keep agency leaders from disregarding the science and will implement key protections that prohibit political interference. The bill would ensure more transparency and accountability from federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As more and more evidence links environmental risk factors to health harms, including breast cancer, science and evidence-based information must be at the forefront of policy-making decisions that prevent these exposures.
As Dr. Diana Zuckerman, President of the National Center for Health Research, recently wrote regarding the COVID-19 pandemic: “We learned a tragic lesson in 2020 about the importance of scientific integrity, and how lives can be lost when science is manipulated, ignored, politicized or misinterpreted.” Weak regulations put us all at risk for developing diseases such as breast cancer.