HERE’S MORE ON THE KASS COUNCIL and its personnel changes. There’s also more background here, here, here, here, and here.

The big news, however, is this piece in the New England Journal of Medicine by former Kass Council member Elizabeth Blackburn, entitled Bioethics and the Political Distortion of Biomedical Science. Nothing new here, but Blackburn casts the council in a rather unfavorable light. So far, I have to say, Kass’s response to his critics has been unimpressive. More on that here.

I could be wrong, but this seems like a serious liability for the Bush Administration. I suspect that the damage would be worse if the terrorism and election news of the last couple of weeks hadn’t kept it off center stage.