From yesterday's AP wire, via theMiami Herald, "Bush Replaces Members of Bioethics Panel":

President Bush on Friday replaced two members of a panel that advises him on issues such as cloning and stem cell research, drawing criticism that he is stacking the bioethics group with ideologically friendly members.

Elizabeth Blackburn, a cell biologist at the University California San Francisco and former president of the American Society for Cell Biology, and William F. May, a medical ethicist and retired professor at Southern Methodist University, were dismissed from the President's Council on Bioethics.

Bush created the council in 2001, replacing a similar commission that advised President Clinton, to tackle issues including embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia and assisted reproduction. He named its 17 members to two-year terms in January 2002.

Elizabeth Marincola, executive director of the American Society for Cell Biology, a nonprofit group representing basic biomedical researchers, said Blackburn and May were often in the minority on the council as they provided dissenting views.

In their place, Bush named Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore; Peter Lawler, chair of the Department of Government and International Studies at Berry College in Georgia; and Diana Schaub, a political science professor at Loyola College in Maryland.

''It does seem alarming. It concerns me profoundly,'' Marincola said of the move. ''The president is trying to ensure the advice he receives is the advice he wants to hear.''