More Accusations of Scientific Abuse by the Bush Administration

Saeed al-Sahaf writes "Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released new evidence that the Bush Administration continues to suppress and distort scientific knowledge and undermine scientific advisory panels. Of course we're not talking about such subjective issues like stem cell research which Bush objects to on religious grounds. Here we are talking about money. The cases discussed in this story detail incidents of suppression and distortion of scientific knowledge on issues ranging from mountaintop removal strip mining to endangered species such as wild Salmon in the Pacific Northwest."

Comments

Re:Ironic

[sfjoe]

Does anyone else find it odd that a story on "scientific abuse" was submitted by a Wiccan?

I don't follow your point. Are only christians allowed to comment on scientific abuse? Or are Wiccans assumed to be anti-science?

Re:Any peer review on this?

[sfjoe]

Because the Union of Concerned Scientists is right up there with the Clown College in my book.

Admission standards to Clown College are a bit higher than I would have thought:

"62 preeminent scientists including Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science recipients, former senior advisers to administrations of both parties, numerous members of the National Academy of Sciences, and other well-known researchers..."

Two points

[Otter]

1) While I appreciate Minister al-Sahaf's acknowledgement that the issues around stem cells are matter of subjectivity, not a science-vs-faith issue like evolution, framing the debate in terms of "religious grounds" isn't all that much better. It's a question of ethics, like other bioethics issues.

2) The Union of Concerned Scientists is a wildly partisan organization, that leans heavily on getting large numbers of scientists to sign their statements and then acting as though that represents an informed expert opinion by the signatories. That doesn't invalidate any particular point they make, of course, but I'd like to examine these accusations on a case by case basis, rather than get excited about "x scientists, including y Nobel Laureates" signing another one of their screeds.

Re:Two points

[Glog]

To be precise there were 48 Nobel laureates who singed that document mentioned in the article. You seem to imply that such people would put their signature on any document just so that the annoying organization bugging them to sign it would get out of their hair. I do believe this time it's different and they actually mean it. When will you start believing Bush needs to go? If only for the damage he's done to science and ecology.

Re:Two points

[meta-monkey]

I find the "suppression" of stem-cell research acusation particularly interesting. The administration did not ban stem-cell research...they simply banned federal funding of it. If stem-cell research is so great and promising, then let private industry fund the research. After all, they're the ones who are going to make money off it.

Too often millions of tax dollars are spent in R&D at government labs to develop a new drug, which is then licensed for pennies to a pharmacutical company, which then charges consumers (that is, the taxpayers who paid to develop it in the first place) $100/dose. Shouldn't liberals be happy we're ending this "corporate welfare?"

Re:Two points

[Hard_Code]

No because probably a good amount of liberals think the government should be spending money to do that itself and then providing those drugs itself for cheap or free. I'd have to say I agree with the argument as far as public health goes. There are lots of things that involve heavy initial investment for which there isn't necessarily a large opportunity for profit (for instance, studying the bad health affects of junk foods isn't something that the junk food industry or cholesterol lowering drug pharmaceuticals are going to invest in). Why spend all that money on something new when you can take an existing drug, change it ever so slightly and squeeze another 5 years of profits out of it? If all else fails simply brand everything as Generic Anxiety Disorder and pump out some drug for that.

Re:Two points

[jilles]

About point 2, this style of politics seems to have replaced reason and common sense in the US. Both parties know most people will never get a chance to examine evidence in detail so instead they depend on making lots of noise in the media.

But still, when a large group of respected, smart and well educated people supports these accusations I think that is more credible than the white house telling us everything is fine. Getting Nobel prize winners to support this means that a few very smart people made a balanced judgement and came to the conclusion that they wanted to support this.

It takes some enormous wisdom or stupidity to dismiss such a thing. I'm afraid there's plenty of stupid americans who will just do that. I'm as pessimistic to believe that the current US government is actually so stupid that they actually believe they know better.

Re:Two points

[magefile]

The problem is, the institutions large enough (rich enough) to pay to create new stem cell lines are afraid of having money taken away from other (non-stem-cell) projects, as well as the stem cell projects they already have (research continues; it's just crippled). It's like how some organizations don't want to offer certain types of sex ed counseling (definitely abortion; I believe also HIV and STD/birth control) overseas because that'd lose their status as a "humanitarian aid organization that is eligible for financial aid".

Besides, do you have any fscking idea how many people stem cell research would help? Pretty much anyone with an enzyme or hormonal deficiency or chemical imbalance (and that includes tons of diseases - diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's). Pharmacos will still have to do expensive research to target stem cell treatments to specific diseases. But as of now, it's too risky for them to pay for *all* stem cell research - that's an incredibly broad category.

Re:Two points

[mcelrath]

When the original article came out the conservative media tried to paint the Union of Concerned Scientists as a partisan organization, you seem to have fallen into that trap hook, line, and sinker.

Do you honestly think that statements from a scientific body are more partisan than those from a political body? We scientists strive to present the government and public with the best data we can and allow the politics to occur elsewhere. There is no room for politics in science. In science one can make a big name for oneself by proving that the accepted dogma is wrong. Ideology cannot survive in such an environment, unless facts are suppressed.

Read the article(s). Most points are not about ethics. This is about ignoring scientific evidince that disagrees with the administration's ideology, placing industry representatives in positions that are a clear conflict of interest, and suppressing and editing scientific reports after the fact. (My favorite is increasing the amount of lead allowed in drinking water, placing a lead industry representative on the committee responsible, and suppressing the report indicating that low levels of lead are more harmful to children than previously thought)

This is not about ethics. It is about misleading the american people. We ignore this warning at our own peril.

-- Bob

Re:Two points

[Atzanteol]

Because a belief is religious in nature, does not mean it is wrong.

Re:Two points

[meta-monkey]

The administration did not say that non-stem-cell research funding will be cut from any organization that conducts stem-cell research, only that the government will not fund stem-cell research.

Yes, I understand how many people stem-cell research will help, and I'm all for this research. However, I'm not in favor of the government paying for it. What will happen is that taxpayers will fund the research, and then drug companies will take the result of this research and gouge the public that paid for it to begin with. Instead, let the drug companies pay for it themselves. True, it's very expensive. However, a single drug company does not have to fund the entire scope of stem-cell research, only the part of interest to them. As they stand to reap enormous profits for developing new drugs or treatments based on stem-cell research, they should pay the costs, not me.

Re:Two points

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

1) While I appreciate Minister al-Sahaf's acknowledgement that the issues around stem cells are matter of subjectivity, not a science-vs-faith issue like evolution, framing the debate in terms of "religious grounds" isn't all that much better. It's a question of ethics, like other bioethics issues.

The banned stem cell research is a matter of hypocrisy and partisan pandering at the expense of science. The banned research in question uses blastocyts (sp?) which is simply an egg fertilized in a petri dish and never embedded in a womb. Banning research using this method is inconsistent since the same practice is used at fertility clinics all over the country. If there is an ethical problem using this method for stem cell research, then it should be equally unethical to use it in fertility clinics. It isn't even a faith vs. science issue like evolution, cause this is even more bogus.

2) The Union of Concerned Scientists is a wildly partisan organization, that leans heavily on getting large numbers of scientists to sign their statements and then acting as though that represents an informed expert opinion by the signatories. That doesn't invalidate any particular point they make, of course, but I'd like to examine these accusations on a case by case basis, rather than get excited about "x scientists, including y Nobel Laureates" signing another one of their screeds.

And which issue was it that you have ever disagreed with these people on? I've been following them for a long time, and although the right likes to complain every time they say something, I've yet to see any refutation of their assertions that was worth the paper it was printed on. If you're going to up make smear attacks against an organization like this, you'll need to back it up with some references. Their board of directors has more accomplishments and standing than any of the detractors I've ever heard.

How is the UCS partisan? They'd lambast a Dem president who did what Bush is currently doing. Of course, we all know the must have just used their undercover Democratic operatives with Chinese contribution cash to go twist the arms of all these scientists so they'd sign on that the Bush administration is using real research that effects this country as political fodder. Attacking the UCS for this tactic is extremely stupid. Does consensus count for nothing now? Should we ignore majority consensus among voters for presidential candidates now? Oh, wait.....

Re:Two points

[Otter]

Getting Nobel prize winners to support this means that a few very smart people made a balanced judgement and came to the conclusion that they wanted to support this.

Sure, that's precisely the impression the UCS intends you to take away. I'm extremely skeptical about it being the case, though.

You can put it down to my being a "stupid American", but my cynicism comes from familiarity with the politics and mentalities in biomedical research, not from ignorance of them. The public face the stem cell researchers show, of deep concern for different perspectives, is nonsense -- in private, I've never heard anything but contempt for anything outside their own consensus.

Re:Two points

[mcelrath]

It is in the public interest to have as much health and drug-related information in the public domain as possible. Compare this to the human genome project: do you want your own genes patented by some other company? If growing replacement organs from stem cells were made viable, it's in the public interest for it to be in the public domain or licensed as widely as possible. More people get treatments faster that way.

If public research were licensed to any comer, no company could charge $100 per dose because they would be quickly undercut. Such patents should be held in a public trust, or by a university which licenses them to industry for manufacture under some compulsory licensing arrangement because they received federal funds. Personally, I think all publicly funded research should end up in the public domain. I know the scenario I describe is not exactly how it always works with taxpayer-funded research.

-- Bob

Re:Two points

[Otter]

Do you honestly think that statements from a scientific body are more partisan than those from a political body?

That's just silly -- the UCS is absolutely not a "scientific body", conspiracy theories about "the conservative media" or no. It is absolutely a partisan, politicized group promoting a certain techno-political viewpoint. There's nothing wrong with that, except for presenting it as an agenda-free group of scientists speaking on their own areas of expertise.

I agree with the concerns about manipulation of government-backed research findings, although I suspect that the sudden concern about that issue has a lot more to do with who is in the White House now than with such actions being as unprecedented as they're being made out. Also, it's worth keeping in mind that "industry representatives" aren't the only ones with axes to grind.

Re:Two points

[dondelelcaro]

What will happen is that taxpayers will fund the research, and then drug companies will take the result of this research and gouge the public that paid for it to begin with.

You seem to be assuming that the majority of the research that is being curtailed is that of major drug companies. Not so. Most major drug companies are quite capable of conducting such experiments on their own without government funding. What this curtails is the ability of Universities to conduct such research, which will end up with the situation that you are concerned about actually coming to fruition.

If the use of government funding to create IP which was then turned around and sold back to consumers is a big deal, then the proper approach is to curtail the IP rights stemming from such funding, rather than stopping the research itself. Not surprisingly, neither the Democrats or the Republicans seem to be interested in controlling the licensing of IP stemming from government funding.

Re:Two points

[BorgCopyeditor]

Two signs of partisanship are an unwillingness to debate issues and a change of focus to the supposed character of whoever is delivering a certain message. You've demonstrated both in your various posts in this thread, presumably because all you have to say is "I'm suspicious." Be as suspicious as you like; the UCS isn't getting rich or getting elected on the basis of their message, so I remain more concerned with the evident motives for bias that the Bush administration doesn't even deign to defend.

Re:Two points

[some guy I know]

There is no room for politics in science.

A more acurate statement would be "There should be no room for politics in science.".
Unfortunately, politics plays a large part in scientific research, even that not sponsered by governments.
For example, in academia, politics plays a large part in applications for and awarding of tenure, grants, etc.
This is because politics and money seem to go together.
Only independently wealthy individuals (and hobbyists) can ignore politics when deciding what lines of research to persue.

Re:Two points

[cyberchondriac]

It's bad that Bush abused science to go to war. I just hope Bush didn't use science to trick the American public into thinking he caught Saddam, when in reality he's still running around.

While I disagree with the Bush administration over some things, like stem cell research, I don't agree that he deliberately mislead - the senate report is out and it pretty firmly acknowledges that the intelligence community is at fault: Clinton, Kerry, Dacshle, all had the same intell that the president had and all voted for the war. Now that we find the intell was bad, but what evidence is there that Bush knew all along there were no WMDs ? He's not the best Pres we ever had, but I don't think he's blatantly dishonest either.

Re:Two points

[Transcendent]

Yes.

P1: One can consider a fertilized egg (an embryo) a living human being.
P2: Killing human beings is wrong.
C: Embryonic stem cell research is wrong.

or if you think an embryo isn't a human yet... one can say denying the development of a potential human being is wrong.

Those agruments, of course, are totally based on someone's code of ethics or morals. If someone do not agree with them, then that someone won't understand the argument since a postulate is (to that person) in itself false.

You also need to agree on the definition of a human being.

You can argue without any reference to killing a human being though...

P1: There are other methods of obtaining stem cells that have as much potential as embryonic stem cells (bone marrow, and they are found throughout pregnant/post-pregnant women for a time).
P2: It is best to upset the least amount of people in a society.
C: It is best not to conduct/endorse embryonic stem cell research.

But then again, we don't know the full potential of embryonic stem cells compared to others... so that last argument only half holds.

I don't necessarily agree with those arguments, but am merely passing them along.

Re:Speaking as a scientist

[sfjoe]

...my interpretation was colored by my political views ...

What was the "politicial" interpretation?
Your subatomic particle data was in favor of gay marriage?

Re:Any peer review on this?

[Vaevictis666]

That would be 4000 total, including "48 Nobel laureates, 62 National Medal of Science recipients, and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences."

Re:Speaking as a scientist

[wanerious]

Call me cynical, but the person who wrote that letter is probably not someone running for office. Any timeline in which George W Bush offers an interpretation on subatomic particle interaction is simply not a solution to the Einstein field equations. It is not allowed in this Universe.

Having said that, the context of this undermining is not clear. Certainly the administration may interpret scientific data any way they choose in forming political action, just as we are free to vote them out if we disagree with their policies or actions. Undermining access to the full set of data, however, should be a crime.

Snore...

[Bluesman]

When the Union of Concerned Economists starts bashing Bush, then I'll be worried.

First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.

Second, what [these particular] scientists seem to lack is a sense of perspective. There are no solutions to real-world problems. There are only trade-offs. Sure, it would be great to have perfectly clean water, but at what point is "clean enough?" How much effort do you spend saving one endangered species?

If your answer to any of these is "more!" then you haven't considered that our society, government, companies and individuals can only spend so much money and effort. Spending it all on one area leaves other, possibly more important areas unattended to.

Science is about finding ideal solutions. Politics, and economics, is about managing a finite number of resources to accomplish things. Yes, it hurts when you recommend that a rare swan be saved and nobody listens, but it's likely you don't have any clue what the trade-off would be.

Re:Snore...

[wanerious]

First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.

Well, if you read the article regarding emergency contraception (the Plan B pill), it seems that it is indeed the way the government now works.

Re:Snore...

[4of12]

Yes, it hurts when you recommend that a rare swan be saved and nobody listens, but it's likely you don't have any clue what the trade-off would be.

Your point is valid, that we do not possess precise information about the trade-offs of certain decisions (eg, continue logging in old-growth forests vs. effect on those ecosystems). But whitewashing the language of critical reports is not going to further the cause of improving the precision of what we know. The contrary is true.

The main problem is not just that advocates of one particular choice (usually involving the economic well-being of ME and MY_INDUSTRY trading off against some more diffuse, hard-to-measure and potentially severe long-term costs to the public) have great influence on policy-making through financial channels, but that these advocates are attempting to actually bias the raw reports that would potentially improve the situation about things we're trying to find out about.

Don't get me wrong: this kind of strong-arm advocacy would be just as bad done from the left as from the right (which just happens to be where it is happening now).

For example, although I tend to agree with a policy that is somewhat leftward of the current U.S. federal government, that does not mean I would condone policy makers attempting to whitewash the trade-offs that went counter to my preferred policy.

For example, an economic impact statement concluding that the livelihood and economic well-being of loggers and their families would be severely impacted by an abrupt and total moratorium on old-growth logging should be evaluated as a data point. Advocates of a moratorium should not whitewash the language, watering down the conclusions in an effort to promote their cause.

Likewise, people advocating a rape of the environment and "removal of burdensome red-tape regulatory bureaucracy" should not try to whitewash the language of scientific reports.

It reflects poorly on the methods and character of the policy makers, and it cheapens and sets back the cause of dispassionate scientific study that we so desperately need to help in formulating rational policy.

Re:Snore...

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.

Son, sit down and let me explain something to you....

The UCS is attacking the Bush administration, because (and the articles reference this) the Bush administration is directly telling agencies to put policy in place that ignores the scientific facts.

Second, what [these particular] scientists seem to lack is a sense of perspective. There are no solutions to real-world problems. There are only trade-offs. Sure, it would be great to have perfectly clean water, but at what point is "clean enough?" How much effort do you spend saving one endangered species?

You're so ignorant of this case it's not funny. Bush is allowing power plants to dump higher levels of mercury into water supplies for starters. The Bush administration is rolling back environmental protections anywhere and everywhere it allows some business to make a buck, especially RNC contributors. This isn't some nitpicking little lefties handwringing over some endangered swan. This is a wholesale assault on our health and safety. We're not talking about perfectly clean water, we're talking about water that causes massive increases in birth defects. And guess what, contaminated water doesn't wind up in rich neighborhoods where they can afford to take care of expensive birth defects, it happens in poor ones, where people don't know any better. And what happens when half the kids in the trailer park turn out retards cause of the mercury? You pay for it in higher taxes and social costs. Unless you want some eugenics along with your laissez faire environmental policy, it's going to wind up costing you way more to let pollution go than it does to regulate it.

The progressive movement (modern lefties, Clinton Third Way folks and all) believes in regulating business and green environmental policies because the others just hide the cost. You may think you're getting cheap stuff out of this, or the economy will do better, but it will wind up costing you more in the long run.

The only people who are being unreasonable in this situation are the people on the right. But don't believe me, go do some freaking research. Quit trying to be so non-partisan, the Bush administration have demonstrated that they are irresponsible and incompetent time and again. They don't deserve your benefit of the doubt, everytime anyone gives it to them, it turns out to be a bad idea (i.e. War in Iraq).

Re:Speaking as a scientist

[jabberjaw]

Apparently you are unfamilar with President Bush's extensive background in particle physics.

That's not all

[benploni]

Check this out:
White House Tries to Rein In Scientists

Remember when the Arab world led scientific thought? They invented and led math, geometry, an alphabet, astronomy, engineering, etc. Then the fundies took over. Arab versions of Bush and Pat Robertson.

Fundamentalism had nothing to do with it.

[Fished]

Fundamentalism had nothing to do with the fall of Arab culture. In fact, Islamic fundamentalism is more or less a twentieth century invention, whereas Islamic culture lost its "edge" around the time of the Renaissance. Rather, the fall of Arab culture had a lot to do with a society and an economy that was utterly dependent on constant expansion to maintain itself. When no more expansion was available (thanks to geographical boundaries for the most part) the culture began to go into decline.

Quite specific evidence

[KnightStalker]

See that great big yellow sidebar on the right side of all the ucsusa pages, with "Reports", "Cases", and "Activism" headings? It takes up nearly half of each page. The "Cases" section, as you might surmise from the name, contains links to specific pieces of evidence.

The page linked to in the /. summary contains a "Related Links" box with a link to a 351k PDF. (The text is "Read the new report".)

Here's the link, in case you still can't find it:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?publ icationID=877

Here is the full report, published in February:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?publ icationID=730

Re:Quite specific evidence

[jgardn]

Interesting.

I don't see any evidence of censorship, even in the PDF report. The reports were still published, albeit without the administration's blessings. All bark and no bite.

It is hardly surprising that the administration would encourage reports to be more apolitical and objective, to include results from related experiments that have contradictory results, and to qualify statements with "may" and "is likely to". This is what they should've been doing in the first place.

For instance, if I am doing a study on the mass of the election, and I do the experiment and get a result different than other experiments, I am going to have to explain why my results are different. Were those studies wrong? Was my study wrong? Is the entire model wrong?

If I can't reconcile the differences, then I have to start writing things like "The experiment suggested that the mass of the electron may be X." rather than "The mass of the electron is X."

And I find the "science" quoted in the article humorous. One of the lines reads, summarized: "Abstinence may cause an increase in pregnancies among partners of male participants". In other words, if you teach abstinence, and they have sex anyways, they are more likely to get pregnant.

They distort this conclusion to represent that Texas has higher pregnancy rates that most other states. Of course, they really mean that Texas has higher rates among secually active couples. They don't talk about the most important figure - the overall pregnancy and STD rate among all teens.

I'm sorry, but the political overtones and lack of objectivity is blatantly apparent in this one. We already know that there is a lot of tension between the EPA and the administration. We already know a lot of eggheads don't like our cowboy president. It sounds like a lot of whining to me.

Re:I call shenanigans...

[4of12]

The Washington Times says

You mean the newspaper owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the man who was recently coronated on Capitol Hill [entertaining account] in the presence of a number of Congressmen?

Antiscience Republicans

[coaxial]

No one with even a small understanding of the scientific process, let alone an interest in scientific progress, can vote Republican in good conscience. Why? Because both wings of Republican party are actively opposed to scientific progress. They will slow walk, whitewash, and when all else fails, flat out lie, to prevent or obscure the truth.

On the buisness side you have those that ignore 30 years of studies concluding that the average global temperature is increasing, and that this increase is directly caused by human activity. ("Needs more study.") You have those that lie before congress, and in congress, that nicotine is not addictive. Then you have those that spout such nonsense that trees cause polution and ketchup is a vegetable.

Then from the religious wing you've got those not only opposed to teaching evolution and the Big Bang, but promoting that world was formed on a tuesday afternoon 5000 years ago. They've even enlisted the federal govenerment to promoting the myth that the Grand Canyon didn't take million of years to form, but rather was formed over the course of a few hours after a global flood.

Re:I call shenanigans...

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Wait, I want to get this straight.... You brought up a Washington Times story to refute an attack on a GOP administration?
Are you aware the Times is operated at a loss of $1 million a week by the Moonies as a propaganda tool? It's not a credible newspaper, especially when critiquing a GOP administration. Go do some research on the Times and the Moonies, it'll make you feel like you stepped into some bizarre world.

Uhm, Greenwatch is funded by the "vast right-wing conspiracy". Scaife funded organizations call anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, radical leftists. Please try discrediting the UCS again. Media Transparency

I haven't got time to go pick apart a 20 page doc right now, but I can't say that I trust much that comes from the White House these days. And about the guy being a life-long Dem, so's Zell Miller, but he's speaking at the GOP convention.

Quit listening to right wing media, it will rot your brain.

I used to blame Republicans/Conservatives

[DynaSoar]

Not any more. I've gotten to know some, and while we disagree, I understand their viewpoint.

For my money, what's been going on is the Republican party has been hijacked, just as surely as the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan. It's been taken over by business "interests" to the point that public policy is not created without it being directed in some way towards making someone money.

A good friend of mine is a policeman at the VA hospital where I work. He's clearly very conservative, and I'm quite the opposite, and we're both vets. We don't agree on much but we enjoy talking. One thing we do agree on: this is not the country we promised to defend. We don't know where it is, what happened to it or when, but we're both damn sure this ain't it.

And I doubt the Democrats are much different, except for the fact that the richer and therefore more powerful "interests" have collected within the Republican party, leaving the Dems weaker.

I've seen exactly this sort of political driving of science done at NIH. If it's not popular with the administration, you risk your career to pursue it, and it's a damn long way to fall if you fall from NIH.

The US is losing its edge in science in part because researchers are not moving to the US to work, and some US researchers are leaving.

He never mentioned souls

[Valdrax]

Alright, no one mentioned souls or spirits but you. Do you accept that it is possible to advance the belief that life (or at least human life) is important in some manner without having a religious angle?

If so, then explain why passing through a vagina (or a surgical opening) changes a newborn from property to a person. Explain, then, why only partially passing through it (as in some late-term abortion methods) does not.

If you use the "dependent on the mother" argument, please explain why it's not okay to kill the child after birth. Would an advance in technology that allowed for the child to develop to term in an artificial womb be grounds for banning abortion since a child would no longer be dependent on the mother? If not, when does a tank-grown child gain personhood and why?

If you use the developmental stages argument, explain why a 5 month-old prematurely birthed baby has human rights that a 6 month-old fetus still in a womb does not.

In my opinion, the best atheistic argument against abortion is that all dividing lines for determining personhood are either arbitrary and/or hypocritical. Birth is arbitrary. Developmental stages can be hypocritical in the face of the rights of premature babies and can be arbitrary and hard to determine. The only absolute for determining humanity is fertilization, when the number of genes in the egg cell equals that of a full-fleged diploid human organism.

Restated: Show me one (non-Buddhist) atheist who is ethically against stem cell research.

I assume by "atheist" you restrict the category to people who weren't raised in a religious setting, right? I can't do that, but I do know former Christian atheists and agnostics who object. You could argue that their beliefs are influenced by religion, but they've managed to cling to a belief in the "sanctity" of life even after no longer truly believing in God. It is rare, though. Most become very utilitarian about the issue.