Sorry, wrong number

The San Diego Union Tribune reports:

California neuroscientist Rebecca Turner could hardly believe her ears.

Turner, a San Francisco psychology professor,was standing in a store line one recent afternoon when she got a cell phone call from a reporter in New England, asking if she had ever conducted research that found women with multiple sex partners can lose the ability to bond emotionally.

Turner had never written such a thing.


A high-ranking Bush appointee – a manwho last month took charge of the nation's family-planning dollars under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – was using the professor's research to promote this theory.

After Turner closed her phone, the cashier asked if the professor was all right.

“I must have looked a little shaken,” Turner said in an interview. “I tried to figure out the logic they used – how they could possibly have reached their conclusion.”

The appointee in question is Eric Keroack, a Massachusetts physician whom President Bushhas tapped to supervise federal family planning programs. The Bush administration calls Keroack a national expert on preventing teen pregnancy.

Great moments in government spending.