US Department of Health and Human Services Adds Layer of Approval Before Employees Can Speak

[sharon sanders]

We think this policy is not in the best interest of public health.


"All HHS Employees and Programs

All HHS employees and programs are required to coordinate, in a timely manner, with the appropriate agency media relations office prior to releasing information that has the potential to generate media or public interest."


http://www.healthjournalism.org/uploads/HHS-Media-Relations-Policy_Sep_2011.pdf

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: US Department of Health and Human Services Adds Layer of Approval Before Employees Can Speak

October 4, 2011

Government obstructing access to science data, panel says

snip


The health, environment and energy reporters laid much of the blame for the lack of progress on a ?disturbing? trend toward top-down, politically-motivated control of what certain agencies make accessible to the media that has continued since President Obama took office.

Even the release of relatively apolitical information, the panelists said, has become subject to approval up a high chain of political command. Some agencies can take days, if they take any action at all, to respond to basic media inquiries and interview requests--far too late for reporters on tight deadlines, according to the speakers.

?What we see happening over and over again with [the Department of Health and Human Services] is that you might go through, say, the National Institutes of Health and contact a scientist with a paper out and expect to get it cleared through the press office at the Institute,? said Nancy Shute, the president of the National Association of Science Writers and a contributor to NPR and Scientific American. ?But, instead, the press office there knocks it up to HHS and Katherine Sebelius and it gets sucked into this black hole for something that should never have required this level of review.?

more...

http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=12180