Boris Johnsons top adviser has been taking part in meetings of a non-political scientific group advising the U.K. government on the coronavirus, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper said a list of attendees of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) on March 23, the same day that Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown, included Dominic Cummings and also data scientist Ben Warner, who worked with Cummings on the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit.
SAGE provides scientific advice to the British government during emergencies but its membership and the advice it gives are kept secret. It is not a new creation but a group called into action when necessary, which in the past decade has advised the government on issues as diverse as the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption and fears last year about the collapse of a reservoir in the East Midlands.
The governments former chief scientific adviser David King told the Guardian he was “shocked” that there were political advisers taking part in SAGE meetings. “If you are giving science advice, your advice should be free of any political bias,” King said. “That is just so critically important.”
Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal, said on Twitter that if the report on Cummings is true, the government “has utterly corrupted independent scientific advice” and “the scientists who sit on SAGERead More – Source
Boris Johnsons top adviser has been taking part in meetings of a non-political scientific group advising the U.K. government on the coronavirus, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper said a list of attendees of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) on March 23, the same day that Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown, included Dominic Cummings and also data scientist Ben Warner, who worked with Cummings on the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit.
SAGE provides scientific advice to the British government during emergencies but its membership and the advice it gives are kept secret. It is not a new creation but a group called into action when necessary, which in the past decade has advised the government on issues as diverse as the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption and fears last year about the collapse of a reservoir in the East Midlands.
The governments former chief scientific adviser David King told the Guardian he was “shocked” that there were political advisers taking part in SAGE meetings. “If you are giving science advice, your advice should be free of any political bias,” King said. “That is just so critically important.”
Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal, said on Twitter that if the report on Cummings is true, the government “has utterly corrupted independent scientific advice” and “the scientists who sit on SAGERead More – Source
