Press Release Details How Bush Administration Has Deleted Crucial Information about Women from Government Websites

Report Documents Disturbing Pattern of Vital Information Important to Women and Girls Disappearing. “MISSING” is A Wake Up Call to the Nation to Demand Accurate, Timely, Nonpartisan Information About Women’s Health, Workplace Rights and Safety

The following press release is from the National Council for Research on Women:



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kirsten Powers 646.872.4718

Jen Bluestein 202.528.6239



Wednesday, April 28, 2004



THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN (NCRW) RELEASES "MISSING:
INFORMATION ABOUT WOMEN’S LIVES"



Report Documents Disturbing Pattern of Vital Information Important to
Women and Girls Disappearing



"MISSING" is A Wake Up Call to the Nation to Demand Accurate, Timely,
Nonpartisan Information About Women’s Health, Workplace Rights and
Safety



Wednesday, April 28, 2004, New York, NY
– The National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) today released
"MISSING: Information About Women’s Lives." The report documents a
disturbing pattern of vital information important to women and girls'
lives disappearing from Federal Government websites, reluctance on the
Government's part to support and sustain offices dedicated to
addressing the specific needs of women, and the Government's
willingness to undervalue and tamper with key research affecting
women's lives.



"This report outlines a series of decisions by federal agencies to
delete, delay, alter, or spin data about what is happening to American
women," said NCRW President Linda Basch. "Over the last four decades,
researchers and citizens – under both Republican and Democratic
administrations – have been able to trust and depend on a vigorous flow
of reliable data from federal agencies. This is no longer true.
Politics and ideology are trumping science on important issues that
affect women's daily lives, resulting in the loss or manipulation of
information critical to women and girls as they make decisions about
their health, careers and safety. Without accurate information,
research suffers; women and girls suffer; our society suffers."



MISSING concentrates on those areas that affect women and girls where
priorities have changed, funding has been cut, research findings
distorted, important social differences masked, and critical committees
and programs dismantled. The report is about the dissolution of
specialized offices, task forces, and committees that focused on
women's needs and concerns, and the implication that these needs and
concerns are not important to public policy and programs. MISSING also
identifies examples where activism and advocacy have prevented these
changes in policy and practice from becoming permanent. Among the
evidence "Missing" presents:



• Twenty-five key publications of the Department of Labor are no longer
available on the Women's Bureau website. Prior to the current
Administration, women could find a wide array of information about
their rights in the workplace by logging onto the DOL website.



With no explanation, the Administration removed 25 fact sheets, denying
women and researchers critical information on everything from staffing
to pay equity to child care to issues of specific importance to black
and Latina women and women business owners.



• Disbanding and underfunding of key Government offices dedicated to
addressing the needs and status of women: The Office of Women's
Initiatives and Outreach in the White House and the President's
Interagency Council on Women are disbanded; Women Implementing New
Goals Successfully (WINGS), the Department of the Interior's National
Park Service (designed to enhance the employment opportunities for
women and ensure fair treatment within the department) is disbanded;
the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) was
slated to be dismantled; has been resuscitated after an outcry, but
with a new mission - to focus on issues such as health care for service
women and the effects of deployment on family life, but not issues of
equity and access.



• Denying the value of critical disaggregated data: The executive
summary of the National Healthcare Disparities Report, a
Congressionally mandated report card on racial, ethnic, and
socioeconomic disparities in healthcare, was watered down and its
conclusions underplayed. And on February 21, 2004, the government
confessed that it improperly altered a report documenting large racial
and ethnic disparities in healthcare. According to Health and Human
Services Secretary Thompson, "some individuals took it upon themselves"
to make the report sound more positive than was justified by the data.



• Failing to submit congressionally mandated reports on women. Under
the 2000 Violence Against Women Act, the Attorney General is required
to conduct a national study of discrimination against domestic violence
victims in the issuing or administration of insurance policies. The
report to Congress was due in October 2001 and to date has not been
submitted. This delay is affecting the case for important federal
legislation on domestic violence and workers' rights in both the House
and Senate.



• Ignoring medical advisory committees. After two medical advisory
committees recommended the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B be
made available over the counter, the Administration caved to lobbying
by conservative groups. Ignoring the recommendation that making this
available to women was a "public health imperative" the Administration
delayed making a decision. Plan B is still not available over the
counter.



• Providing misleading information about women's health. After numerous
studies established no link between breast cancer and abortion, the
Administration posted information saying studies were "inconsistent,"
intentionally misleading women in an effort to scare them from getting
an abortion. In fact, they removed earlier versions of the fact sheets
that stated clearly that there was no connection. And information on a
Health and Human Services (HHS) website has been distorted, and
performance measures to test the effectiveness of abstinence programs
have been altered, in order to make abstinence-only approaches to
pregnancy prevention appear more successful than they have been
otherwise proven to be.



Said Basch: "MISSING is a wake up call to the nation that a nonpartisan
legacy of government is being destroyed. Decisions to distort or
withhold information have a cumulative negative effect for women and
girls that is serious and detrimental and must not be left unchecked.



Concerned citizens must make their voices heard through communicating
to officials and elected representatives the crucial need for unbiased,
objective information."



"As researchers, we at NCRW know that clear, accurate data and
comparative analyses are crucial to solving problems and achieving
equality," said Basch. "Distortion of information and omissions deny
researchers critical facts and impede our ability to craft solutions
and develop strategies to address the pressing challenges of our times.
When data and analysis are obscured and regular reports withheld, women
– and women's research and policy centers – are left in the dark."



NCRW will continue to shine a light on this disturbing pattern of
withholding or spinning data about women and girls through its
MisInformation Clearinghouse (www.ncrw.org). The full report is
available in PDF format on the site, and the Clearinghouse is a growing
register of omissions, alterations, and distortions of vital
information that was once readily available, and a repository of links
to sites where good information can still be found. For example, the
MisInformation Clearinghouse highlights:



• Information on Environmental Pollutants and Women's Health Are
Missing. According to a recent study, environmental toxins have a
disproportionate effect on women— especially low-income women and women
of color. But, disturbingly, no new fact sheets on the effects of
environmental pollutants on women's health have been posted on federal
government websites since 2000—this, despite promises in 1997 by the
Science Policy Council of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
address gender specific issues and use gender and age-differentiated
data in Agency risk assessment and management decisions. Not only has
the government neglected to produce this type of data, but in a recent
trend, has ignored and altered the information that has been collected,
resulting in the development of unsound environmental policy on toxins
like mercury and lead, both of which disproportionately affect women.



• Key Information on Realities of Violence Against Women in 'Healthy
marriage' Proposal is Missing. Government research on violence against
women appears to be 'missing' from the current Administration's
'Healthy Marriage' proposal. This proposal puts women in danger, as it
lacks provisions that take the prevention of and protection against
domestic violence into account.



About the National Council for Research on Women



The National Council for Research on Women is an alliance of 100
leading US and international women's research and policy centers. NCRW
uses research as a tool for progressive social change. NCRW promotes
scholarship on issues significant to women and girls; fosters
collaboration across borders of gender, race, nationality, sexual
orientation, class, and generation; and influences public debate
through accurate information and analysis.



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