Rick Bissell, emergency health services, was as an invited panel discussant at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. The panel discussed public access to timely and valid science-based information in disasters and other emergencies. This topic has risen in importance in recent years following information inaccuracies or withholding in the following incidents: airborne particulates and contaminants secondary to the collapse of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, several “mad cow” incidents in the last decade in which information has been obfuscated, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and various …